AMER 




THE SEQUEL TO THE EUROPEAM WAR 




"TO B^ PREPARED FOR WAR IS ONE OF THE MOST 
EFFEcftlAL MEANS OF PRESERVING PEACE. A 
FREE PEOPLE OUGHT NOT ONLY TO BE ARMED. 
BUT DISCIPLINED; TO WHICH END A UNIFORM AND 
WELL-DIGESTED PLAN IS REQUISITE." 

From IVashington's First Annual Addresi 




Class U l^ir'>i) 
Book JT ' 






Copyright )J». 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



AMERICA FALLEN! 



AMERICA FALLEN! 

The Sequel to the European War 

By 
J. BERNARD WALKER 




New York 

Dodd, Mead and Company 

1915 






^v:>^/' 



'^^ 



Copyright, 191S. by 
DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY 



MAY 13 1915 ' 



!r^n A««7fl8a ^ 



PREFACE 

This book has been written entirely with- 
out prejudice. What Germany did could 
be done by more than one of the great 
naval and military powers of Europe. 
That she has been chosen to point the 
moral of our unpreparedness is due to the 
fact that German unity of thought and ac- 
tion provide the strongest contrast to the 
lack of harmonious purpose and co-ordi- 
nated effort which characterize the United 
States. 

J. B. W. 

New York, 
April, 19 1 5. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I THE PEACE OF GENEVA . . 3 

II THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT 

POTSDAM 10 

III AN UNDEFENDED TREASURE 

LAND 26 

IV EMBARKATION OF THE GER- 
MAN ARMY .... 32 
V THE GERMAN FLEET SETS SAIL 40 
VI THE CABINET MEETING AT 

WASHINGTON .... 47 
VII THE RAID OF THE SUBMARINES 66 
VIII CAPTURE OF NEW YORK HAR- 
BOR DEFENCES .... 79 
IX INDEMNITY OR BOMBARDMENT 88 
X THE BOMBARDMENT OF NEW 

YORK lOI 

XI THE CAPITULATION OF NFW 

YORK 117 

XII THE SURRENDER OF BOSTON . 1 24 



vi Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIII THE CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON 1 34 

XIV SEEKING THE GERMAN FLEET . 1 49 
XV THE BATTLE OF THE CARIB- 
BEAN 159 

XVI REAPING THE WHIRLWIND . 1 77 
XVII THE CAPTURE OF PITTSBURG — 

AND PEACE . . . .191 



AMERICA FALLEN! 



THE PEACE OF GENEVA 

The Treaty of Geneva, which brought to 
a close the European War, was signed, on 
March, i, 19 16, by the peace plenipoten- 
tiaries of no less than thirteen nations. 

Throughout the spring, summer, and 
winter of 19 15, the titanic conflict, en- 
larged by the entry of over 3,000,000 
troops of Italy and the Balkan States into 
the theater of operations, swayed to and 
fro across the blood-soaked soil of Europe, 
with a ferocity and slaughter which sick- 
ened even the most hardened veterans of 
the war. Weight of numbers and a crush- 
ing superiority in artillery drove the 
armies of the Dual Monarchy back upon 
Budapest and Vienna, held the redoubtable 

Von HIndenberg within his own frontiers, 
3 



4 America Fallen 

and rolled the German armies in France 
and Belgium slowly back to the Rhine and 
the Dutch frontier. 

Undismayed, and fighting against heavy 
odds with a magnificent courage and stead- 
iness, Germany took up a seemingly im- 
pregnable position on the right bank of the 
Rhine and marshaled her forces for a 
strictly defensive campaign in 191 6. Late 
in November of 19 15, however, when by 
common consent the warring hosts on the 
Western battle line had apparently settled 
down for comparative rest and recupera- 
tion during the winter months in a quasi- 
defensive, similar to that of 19 15, Hol- 
land suddenly declaring war, entrenched 
herself heavily on the German border, and 
a vast Allied reserve army, entering Hol- 
land by the Belgian-Dutch border, and by 
way of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, con- 
centrated to the east of the Rhine, drove 
down in a resistless offensive into West- 



The Peace of Geneva 5 

phalla, taking the German army in the 
right flank and rear, and captured the 
great centers of artillery and ammunition 
supply in Essen and the surrounding dis- 
tricts. 

Germany, realizing that, with the Krupp 
and other factories in the hands of the 
enemy, the war must end automatically, ac- 
cepted the friendly offices of the Swiss 
Government and the peace conference 
opened at Geneva. 

And thus it came about that there gath- 
ered on the shores of the placid lake the 
most momentous conclave in all the history 
of the world. 

Contrary to universal expectation the 
deliberations moved forward with a swift- 
ness which, considering the enormous in- 
terests at stake, appeared to a nervously 
apprehensive world simply incredible. And 
herein was seen the advantage, costly 
though it had been in blood and treasure, 



6 America Fallen 

of carrying the gigantic struggle through 
to an absolutely decisive issue. 

The earlier deliberations, relative to the 
readjustment of boundaries and territory, 
moved rapidly to their expected results. 
Russia, content with the possession of Con- 
stantinople, and the extension of her fron- 
tier to the Carpathians, agreed readily to 
the re-creation of Poland as an autonomous 
and " buffer '^ state between herself and 
Germany. To Roumania was given 
Transylvania on the condition, arranged 
previously to her entrance into the war, 
that she return to Bulgaria the territory 
wrested from her during the second Bal- 
kan War, and Servia was enlarged by the 
acquisition of Herzegovina and Bosnia. 
The boundary between Italy and Austria 
was rectified so as to restore to Italy her 
lost provinces, France, as the reward of 
the heroic struggle of her citizen soldiery, 
regained possession of Alsace and Lor-. 



The Peace of Geneva 7 

ralne. Japan was permitted to hold Kiao- 
Chou and acquire from China the lease 
formerly held by Germany, a pledge being 
given for the maintenance of the " Open 
Door " in that country. 

So far, so good; but when it came to 
the insistence by the Allies on an indemnity 
of fifteen billion dollars, the first install- 
ments of which were to be paid into the 
Belgian treasury, Germany presented an 
adamantine front. And to the demands 
of Great Britain that the German fleet be 
reduced by the distribution of its major 
units among the fleets of the Allies, she 
retorted that if the transfer of so much as 
a ship's launch to a foreign flag were again 
suggested, Germany would withdraw at 
once from the convention, and *' would 
fight It out until the last mark, the last 
loaf of bread, and the last man was 
gone ! " 

The convention was adjourned for a 



8 America Fallen 

week; and In view of the uncompromising 
front presented by Germany and Great 
Britain, and the* probability of a con- 
tinuance of the war to the bitter end, the 
world was thrown Into a state of profound 
despondency and foreboding. 

The next session was marked by the 
most dramatic Incident of the whole con- 
ference. No sooner had the meeting been 
declared open than the German pleni- 
potentiary abruptly announced that he had 
received Instructions from Berlin to state 
that, If no more mention were made of the 
dismemberment of her fleet, Germany 
would agree to pay an Indemnity to the 
Allies of fifteen billion dollars, and give 
the customary pledges therefor. 

The curt announcement of Germany's 
assumption of this stupendous obligation 
produced, even in that well-poised as- 
sembly, a barely-checked murmur of as- 
tonishment. The British plenipotentiary 



The Peace of Geneva 9 

asked for a three days^ adjournment. He 
was instructed by his home government 
to stand firm for the disruption of the 
German navy; but on his cabling that it 
was the unanimous opinion of the rest of 
the Allies, that the assumption by Ger- 
many of this enormous indebtedness would 
so far cripple her financially as to render 
any material increase of her naval forces 
impossible before the existing ships were 
becoming obsolete, he was instructed to ac- 
cept the German conditions. 

And so, on the ist of March, 19 16, 
the thirteen signatures which ended the 
greatest moral and material tragedy in the 
whole history of the world were appended 
and peace settled over the stricken people 
of Europe. 

And, thereafter, men said to one an- 
other when they met: " How came it about 
that Germany so suddenly agreed to pay 
that fifteen-billion-dollar indemnity? " 



II 

THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AT POTSDAM 

On the morning of the day following the 
signing of the Peace of Geneva, Germany's 
plenipotentiary, Count Von Buelow, en- 
tered the Council Chamber at Potsdam 
punctually at the hour appointed. There 
was gloom upon his face — and weariness, 
too; for throughout the night journey to 
Berlin, the burden of that fifteen-billion- 
dollar indemnity, which the Kaiser had 
authorized him to impose upon stricken 
Germany, had lain heavily upon his mind. 
Heavy gloom sat also upon the faces of the 
distinguished company around the council 
board. Von HolWeg, the Imperial Chan- 
cellor was there, and the foreign secretary, 
Von Jagow; Falkenhayn, also, the Chief of 
the Great General Staff, and next to him, 



Council Chamber at Potsdam i i 

Von TIrpItz, creator and controlling mind 
of the German Navy. Present also was 
the chief of the German Secret Service, and 
last, but not least, the Chief of the German 
Official Press Bureau. 

Von Buelow had scarcely taken his seat 
when the murmur of desultory conversa- 
tion suddenly ceased, and every man stiff- 
ened to the habitual pose of military and 
state decorum, as the Kaiser entered and 
strode to the head of the table. 

Was he changed by the tragic happen- 
ings of the last twenty months? Yes, and 
no. The hair had whitened, and the stu- 
pendous burden of responsibility had 
bowed somewhat, as well it might, the 
shoulders upon which it had borne so 
heavily. But there was something in that 
flashing blue eye, in the set of the lips, and 
in the whole atmosphere of that ever-to-be- 
remembered face, which showed that he 
was still a Prussian of the Prussians, and 



12 America Fallen 

that the indomitable spirit of the latest, 
if not the last of the Hohenzollerns, 
burned unquenched and unquenchable in 
the soul of the man. 

Obeying the scarcely perceptible wave 
of his hand, the distinguished company 
seated themselves with their Kaiser for a 
council which, as subsequent events 
proved with lightning-like rapidity, was 
to be big with the fate, not this time of 
Europe, but of the great Western Hemi- 
sphere. 

And thus he spoke : 

" The Day has come and gone and Ger- 
many has lost ! What may have been and 
what yet may be the purposes of an in- 
scrutable Providence neither you nor I can 
tell. This much I do know, that if the 
sword was thrust into our hands by the 
Almighty for our own chastisement, it is 
for us to bow our heads in submission. 
That God sent us into battle for our own 



Council Chamber at Potsdam 13 

permanent undoing, I do not believe. Our 
beloved Fatherland has set up before the 
eyes of the world a kiiltur too broad and 
beneficent, and the influence of that kiiltur 
upon the great world outside of Germany 
has been too profound and will prove too 
lasting, for God ever to contemplate the 
fall and passing away of the great Ger- 
man Empire. As surely as gold is purified 
by fire, so surely shall Germany emerge, 
freed of all dross and with more splendid 
potentialities for the future, out of this 
seven-times heated furnace of the war. 

" I ask you to consider that Germany has 
passed through this supreme ordeal with 
her vitality unimpaired and her military 
prestige enhanced. I will even say that 
she Is the stronger for her territorial 
losses. Alsace and Lorraine have ever 
been a thorn In the side of Germany — 
the one impassable barrier to cordial rela- 
tions with our great French neighbor, 



14 America Fallen 

whose good will, as you well know, it has 
been my earnest endeavor to win. And 
as for our lost colonial possessions, I, as 
well as you, have long recognized that they 
.were too widely scattered, too little co- 
ordinated, to carry much military value; 
moreover, as outlets for our expanding 
population, they have failed of their pur- 
pose. 

" Of the crime of Kiao-Chou I will say 
no more than that Germany never forgets ! 

" Has Germany, then, no future beyond 
the seas? She has, most assuredly, and it 
lies (would that we had recognized the 
fact, and recognizing, acted upon it long 
ago) in the Western Hemisphere, in the 
southern half of the great American con- 
tinent. South America beckons the Ger- 
man colonist and calls to us for the further 
exploitation of its abundant natural re- 
sources by that combination of German 
science, capital, and organization, with 



Council Chamber at Potsdam 15 

which our competitors have found it im- 
possible sucessfully to compete. 

'' But if, by purchase or by such means 
as the time and circumstance may demand, 
we are to found a colony or colonies in 
South America, it will be necessary to clear 
the air by disposing, once and for all, of 
that curious fiction which has come to be 
known as the ' Monroe Doctrine.' The 
peculiar claims set forth therein by the 
United States have been described as ' the 
most magnificent bluff in all history and, 
so far, the most successful.' But you and 
I know, and it is known in all the chan- 
cellories of Europe, that the bravado has 
been successful only by our sufferance, and 
because the great problems of Europe, 
for which the late war has been fought, 
called for more pressing solution. 

" I have spoken of the ' Monroe Doc- 
trine ' as a fiction — perhaps I had better 
have described it as composed of many fie- 



i6 America Fallen 

tlons, not the least among which has been 
the belief that back of this policy lay the 
strength of the British fleet. I know not 
with certainty how much of truth there has 
been in that assumption ; but, thanks to the 
work of our plenipotentiary at Geneva, an 
understanding, secret and supplementary 
to the general treaty, was reached with the 
British representative, by which, in con- 
sideration of our withdrawal from the 
Euphrates Valley (which the collapse of 
the Turkish Empire has rendered less at- 
tractive to German enterprise than it 
was), Great Britain pledges herself to a 
neutral attitude on the ' Monroe Doctrine,^ 
except so far as it affects her own North 
American possessions, 

" With the fleet of Great Britain elimi- 
nated as an element in the problem, it be- 
comes possible for Germany, as I shall 
show you later, to achieve, through the 
instrumentality of her fleet, a feat of arms 



Council Chamber at Potsdam 17 

which, in a swift series of operations, shall 
restore our naval and military prestige in 
the eyes of the German people, demolish 
for all time the ' Monroe Doctrine,' and 
transfer from the shoulders of Germany 
to those of the United States of America 
the burden of the fifteen-billion-dollar 
indemnity, imposed upon us by the Treaty 
to which, only yesterday, we appended our 
signature. 

*' I have said that the war has added to 
our miUtary prestige — I will go further 
and say that, in the eyes of all the world, 
and particularly among those who follow 
the profession of arms, our military pres- 
tige has been immeasurably increased. 
We set out to fight the two greatest mili- 
tary powers, next to ourselves; and alone 
we would have crushed them utterly. As 
the event has proved, Germany and Austria 
found themselves confronted by the em- 
battled hosts of no less than ten nations. 



1 8 America Fallen 

Nevertheless, we carried the war Into the 
enemy's territory, and, so far as Ger- 
many is concerned, we presented an im- 
pregnable wall, which was finally pierced, 
only by overwhelming numbers, and, 
thanks largely to our American friends, by 
a preponderance of artillery against which 
even the indomitable soldiers of Germany 
could not prevail. 

*' It Is only by the mass of the German 
people that these things are not well un- 
derstood. We, of the ruling class, you will 
remember, told the people, brought up 
as they were to believe in the absolute in- 
vincibility of the German army, that within 
a month of the declaration of war we 
should be In Paris and within two months 
in St. Petersburg. Instead, they have seen 
that army arrested, held fast, and finally 
thrown back In defeat upon Its own bor- 
ders. The Socialists of Germany, work- 
ing upon the minds of a defeated and dis- 



Council Chamber at Potsdam 19 

couraged people, are laying the blame for 
this disaster upon the shoulders of the 
very class which has made Germany what 
it is. We, it is, who have made the Ger- 
man Empire and given to it the only sys- 
tem of government which, bearing in 
mind the century-long training and peculiar 
temperament of its people, can maintain it 
intact amid the powerful and jealous na- 
tions of Europe, and carry it forward to 
the greater future that awaits it. 

''The prestige of the army and navy and 
the confidence of the people in its ruling 
class can be restored only by some swift 
and brilliant feat of arms — and in view 
of the rapidly augmenting strength of the 
Socialistic upheaval, that feat of arms can- 
not be performed too soon. 

" The United States, as you are well 
aware, has recently reaffirmed the ' Mon- 
roe Doctrine ' by definite Congressional 
action, forbidding the acquisition by any 



20 America Fallen 

alien power of harbors or coaling stations 
which are located within striking distance 
of the Panama Canal, and which might 
serve as a base for hostile operations in 
the Caribbean. 

" That, gentlemen, is a clear and bold — 
I had almost said defiant — expression of 
one of the most important among the 
great foreign policies which the United 
States, since the period of the Spanish 
War, has adopted and proclaimed to the 
world in no unmeasured terms. In addi- 
tion to the ' Monroe Doctrine ' I have but 
to refer to their championship of the 
* Open Door ' in China, to the matter of 
the exclusion of the Asiatics, and to the 
construction and fortification of the Pan- 
ama Canal; which great work and the 
Caribbean, as I foresee it, in the future 
naval wars of the New World, will be 
what Gibraltar and the Mediterranean 
were to the contending navies of the eight- 



Council Chamber at Potsdam 21 

eenth century. The ultimate entry of the 
great republic of the Western Hemisphere 
into the field of world politics was, of 
course, inevitable; but that this entrance 
would be marked by the adoption of a Une 
of policies so bold as these, involving the 
possibility, nay the certainty, of conflict 
sooner or later with the great naval and 
military powers of the world, I, for one, 
was not prepared to believe. 

" Had there been in the United States 
that intimate and well-balanced relation- 
ship and co-operation between the diplo- 
matic and the naval and military services 
which obtains in Germany, the growth of 
these ambitious policies would have been 
marked by a commensurate growth of the 
military and naval forces of the country. 
This co-operation, as you are well aware, 
has been conspicuously absent. The 
United States Congress, always fearful 
and jealous of what it is pleased to term 



22 America Fallen 

'militarism,' has failed to listen to the 
warnings of Its military advisers; with 
the result, to-day, that it is endeavor- 
ing to support a line of first-class In- 
ternational policies with a third-class 
navy, and with military forces which are so 
Insignificant that. In the eyes of a first- 
class military nation, they may be regarded 
as practically negligible. The burden of 
responsibility for these conditions lies not 
upon the naval and mlHtary advisers of 
Congress, but upon Congress itself; which, 
as our ambassadors have from time to 
time informed us, does not hesitate to play 
politics with matters which involve the 
very life and death of the nation itself. 

" Should the blow which Germany, in the 
hour of her dire need. Is about to strike 
against the United States lead that great 
country to a realization of the necessity at 
all times for proper naval and military pre- 
paredness, the regret which I and Ger- 



Council Chamber at Potsdam 23 

many feel at having to break our friendly 
relations with a country with which we 
have always lived In perfect amity, will be 
tempered by the thought that, out of her 
temporary loss she will reap a future gain 
of Inestimable benefit. 

" It Is noteworthy that our swift descent 
upon that great country could not be car- 
ried out with any reasonable hope of suc- 
cess, had the United States Congress but 
given heed to the words of Its first soldier- 
president which were spoken, If my mem- 
ory serves me well, In his first annual ad- 
dress. ' To be prepared for war,' said 
Washington, ' Is one of the most effectual 
means of preserving peace. A free people 
ought not only to be armed, but disci- 
plined; to which end a uniform and well- 
digested plan IS requisite.' " 

The Kaiser ceased speaking and, turn- 
ing to the Foreign Secretary, he said: 
*' Von Jagow, have you had the necessary 



24 America Fallen 

conversations with the Danish minister, 
and have you requested him to be pres- 
ent?" 

" The conversations were eminently sat- 
isfactory, your Majesty. The Danish 
minister is in the anteroom and awaits 
your commands." 

" Send for him," said the Kaiser. 

The Danish minister entered, and he 
was no sooner seated than the Kaiser, 
without any prehminaries, abruptly asked, 
" What sum do you name as the purchase 
price of the island of St. Thomas in the 
West Indies?" 

" Twenty-five million dollars, your 
Majesty," said the minister. 

"We will give you that sum for the 
island," said the Kaiser. " The only stip- 
ulation is that you shall pledge yourself to 
secrecy, leaving it to Germany to announce, 
at such time as may seem best, the transfer 
of the island. Here are the necessary 



Council Chamber at Potsdam 25 

papers, and If you will affix your signature 
the transfer can be consummated here and 



The Danish minister smiled, took the 
pen, signed the documents, and, after the 
customary fehcltations, withdrew. 



Ill 

AN UNDEFENDED TREASURE LAND 

"Gentlemen," said the Kaiser, as the 
door closed upon the retiring Danish min- 
ister, '' I have frequently said to you in 
this council chamber that the future of 
Germany lies upon the sea. To-day, in 
spite of the enforced inaction of our fleet 
during the war, I hold to that doctrine 
with unshaken conviction. Hence I did 
not hesitate, Von Buelow, to instruct you 
to offer fifteen billion dollars as the price 
of redeeming the fleet. 

" If you ask me, as all Germany, doubt- 
less, is asking Itself at this very hour, how 
it will be possible for our stricken Father- 
land to discharge this enormous obligation, 
I answer that not a single pfennig of this 

indemnity shall be raised by the taxation 

26 



An Undefended Treasure Land 27 

of my beloved people, or be paid out of 
their national treasury. 

" Gentlemen, you may rest assured that 
when I authorized the acceptance of the 
indemnity, I had already determined on 
a plan by which this stupendous sum could 
be realized without adding to the heavy 
obligations which the war had already im- 
posed upon us." 

Springing to his feet, the Kaiser swept 
his outstretched arm to the westward, and 
his voice took on that incisive staccato 
which indicates in him the deepest feeling: 
" On yonder side of the Atlantic lies an 
undefended treasure land, fifty billions of 
whose one hundred and fifty billions of 
wealth are to be found on the seaboard, 
and within easy reach of an expeditionary 
force and the guns of a hostile fleet. It is 
my purpose that the German Navy, on 
whose behalf I have assumed the indem- 
nity, shall be made the instrument for se- 



28 America Fallen 

curing the means of payment. It will ap- 
peal to your sense of the fitness of things 
that the United States, which has con- 
tributed so largely to our defeat, should 
pay the costs of this war and that the navy 
should play the part of collector. 

" If it should be said that this descent 
upon the coasts of the United States is a 
premeditated attack upon a friendly power, 
our reply will be, that, though the charge 
is technically true, ethically it Is false. 
When that neutral country turned itself 
Into an arsenal for the supply of guns, 
ammunition, and military stores and equip- 
ment to the enemies of Germany, it be- 
came In effect an active participant in our 
overthrow. You, Von Falkenhayn, will 
agree with me that the military supphes 
furnished to the Allies by the United 
States were of more value to them than 
several army corps. It was the preponder- 
ance of artillery, due In large measure to 



An Undefended Treasure Land 29 

the purchases from America, that was the 
ultimate cause of our loss of the war. 

"Although It was technically correct and 
in agreement with international law, the 
material assistance rendered by the United 
States was, I repeat, morally wrong; and 
in sending my fleet to exact from that 
country both the indemnity and the cost to 
Germany of the war, or twenty billion dol- 
lars in all, I feel that I am performing no 
more than an act of righteous retribution. 

" The object of our expedition will be 
greatly facihtated by the fact that the 
dreadnought fleet of the United States, 
consisting of ten ships, is now assembled 
off Vera Cruz — the Washington Govern- 
ment being still engaged in toying with the 
Mexican situation by following out its 
futile policy of ' Watchful waiting.' 
Equally favorable to our plans Is the fact 
that the bulk of the effective regular force 
of 30,000 men in the Continental United 



30 America Fallen 

States is gathered on the Mexican border. 
The pre-dreadnought fleet of the United 
States, moreover, is being paraded, just 
now, in the various ports of the Pacific 
Coast. 

" You, Von Tirpitz, will agree with me 
that the prolonged inactivity of our fleet 
in the North Sea and Baltic ports has ren- 
dered it desirable that the ships be at once 
sent to sea for a series of maneuvers on a 
grand scale, the operations to extend over 
a series of weeks. 

" After a grand review, which I shall 
hold off Heligoland, the fleet will be dis- 
patched to the Atlantic, ostensibly for 
these maneuvers, but actually for a descent 
upon the coasts of the United States. 

" From a rendezvous in the western At- 
lantic, the various divisions of the main 
fleet will move to the selected points of 
attack in accordance with the general plans 
formulated several years ago as the result 



An Undefended Treasure Land 31 

of our academic study of the problem of 
an Invasion of the United States. The 
modifications necessary for the present 
enterprise will be such as are rendered 
necessary by the present strength of our 
fleet, the location and strength of the 
enemy's forces, and by the Imperative de- 
mand for secrecy, dispatch, and strict co- 
ordination as to time and place. 

That, gentlemen, is the plan and April 
I, 1916, will be ' Der Tag!''' 



IV 

EMBARKATION OF THE GERMAN ARMY 

Upon the declaration of peace, the Ger- 
man Government announced that the mili- 
tary rule and censorship which had ob- 
tained throughout the war would be ex- 
tended to cover the few weeks which 
would be required for the demobilization 
of the German army. It was explained 
that this course was adopted for the double 
purpose of facilitating the orderly return 
of the citizen-soldiers to their homes, and 
of delaying any publication of the strength 
of the German army In the field at the 
close of the war, and of its total losses, 
until such time as the government thought 
best to make these facts pubHc. 

On the very day, March ist, of the sign- 
32 



Embarkation of German Army 33 

ing of the Peace of Geneva, and in some 
cases even while the ink of the signatories 
was wet upon the paper, the great fleet of 
German merchant ships which had been in- 
terned in foreign ports during the war 
cast loose its moorings and set sail for the 
Fatherland. Among the first of these 
ships to start out from her pier and head 
for the open sea was the great Hamburg- 
American liner Faterland, and as she 
and the Kaiser JVilhelm II, of the North 
German Lloyd, followed at intervals 
by other ships of these two companies, 
steamed down the North River, and out 
through the Narrows, New York wished 
them Godspeed on their homeward voyage 
with the flying of flags, the dipping of en- 
signs by the shipping, and the prolonged 
roar of a thousand steam whistles and 
sirens. 

Meanwhile in Germany all public traflic 
over the railways was suspended and the 



34 America Fallen 

huge task of returning some seven millions 
of men to their homes was begun. 

Not all of the troops, however, were 
thus immediately redistributed to the 
farms and factories and business houses of 
Germany. A picked force of 200,000 
veterans of the first line was diverted to 
the leading German seaports on the North 
Sea and the Baltic, and within a few days 
after the close of the war 20,000 of these 
troops, with the necessary artillery and 
equipment, had been embarked upon cer- 
tain transports of moderate size and draft, 
which, as soon as the troops were aboard, 
pulled out into midstream and awaited 
further orders. In every case the troops 
went aboard at night, and during the oper- 
ation the cordon of secrecy drawn around 
the various naval bases and ports at which 
the embarkation took place was tightened. 

While the loaded transports were await- 
ing their orders, the troops remained be- 



Embarkation of German Army 35 

low deck and only the regular working 
force of the ship was visible. One by one, 
and from widely separated harbors, these 
ships slipped their moorings and put to 
sea. Some by the way of the English 
Channel and others following the route 
around the north coast of Scotland and 
Ireland, they proceeded at slow speed to 
their appointed rendezvous In the western 
Atlantic. 

Each ship sailed at sundown, and dur- 
ing the first night out the color and band- 
ing of Its smokestacks were changed to 
that of some foreign ship of similar size 
and contour, the corresponding foreign flag 
being flown. Those that took the south- 
erly route regulated their speed so as to 
pass through the straits of Dover at night; 
those that laid their course around the 
north of Scotland maintained a good off- 
ing, beyond signaling distance of the 
coast guard and signal stations. As soon 



36 America Fallen 

as it was well clear of the Channel and 
the Irish coast, each ship, avoiding the 
regular sailing routes, laid its course to the 
westward. 

Meanwhile the work of transforming 
the largest and fastest of the German 
ocean liners, headed by the Imperator 
and her recently-completed sister ship, the 
new Bismarck, into transports was being 
rushed day and night by the largest work- 
ing force that could be crowded upon their 
decks. The commodious, first-class state- 
rooms were stripped of their furniture 
and galvanized-pipe folding berths were 
fitted on each wall. The spacious saloons, 
restaurants, palm gardens, etc., were sim- 
ilarly denuded of their furnishings and 
fitted with berths. The wide promenade 
decks were inclosed by canvas and fitted 
with berthing accommodation. So vast is 
the space available on the nine decks and 
in the holds of these ships, which in peace 



Embarkation of German Army 37 

time can carry 5,000 souls, that when 
the alterations were completed, it was 
found that each of the three ships of the 
Imperator class could carry 10,000 troops 
with their full equipment. 

The work of transforming the liners 
that had been interned in the United 
States began on the day they left New 
York, and they were stripped and ready 
for the shipyard workmen by the time, 
seven days later, they reached the home 
ports. With such efficiency and dispatch 
was this work carried through that the 
second expeditionary force of 50,000 men 
was embarked and had sailed on or before 
the 28th of March. The transports 
carrying this force were vessels of from 
20 to 23 knots' speed. Some of them sailed 
boldly on advertised schedules, direct for 
New York; the rest slipped away by night, 
adopting the same ruses and secrecy as the 
transports of the first expedition. They 



38 America Fallen 

sailed at intervals during the last two 
weeks of March, and the rate of steaming 
was so adjusted as to bring the whole ex- 
pedition to New York, Boston, and Wash- 
ington between the ist and 3d of April. 

The third army of 130,000 men, in 
transports of from 14 to 19 knots' speed 
set sail on April ist, the faster ships of 
the George Washington and America type 
pushing on with all speed, and the slower 
ships proceeding as a fleet under convoy 
of the ten battleships of the Wittleshach 
and Kaiser JVilhehn II. classes. 

And so it came about that, by employ- 
ing the full force of every naval and pri- 
vate shipyard in the country, Germany, 
within the month, had embarked upon the 
seas an army of invasion composed of 
200,000 of the picked veteran troops of 
the war, completely equipped with artil- 
lery, transport, and supplies. 

And, thanks to the tightening of the 



Embarkation of German Army 39 

censorship and the patriotic silence of the 
shipyard employees, not a whisper of what 
was going on escaped to the outside world, 
until on April ist the third expeditionary 
force, convoyed by battleships, steamed 
boldly out into the North Sea and laid its 
course by way of the English Channel for 
the coasts of America. 



V 

THE GERMAN FLEET SETS SAIL 

On March 15th, there was published In 
the leading Berlin papers, and repeated 
throughout the world, the following official 
announcement: "The restoration of peace, 
the return of our valiant army, and the 
fact that our navy has emerged from the 
war with Its strength unimpaired, will be 
celebrated by a grand review of the whole 
German fleet which will be held In the 
Bight of Heligoland, In the presence of 
the Kaiser. At the conclusion of the re- 
view, In order to afford the fleet an oppor- 
tunity, on an extended scale, for those ex- 
ercises on the high seas which have been 
denied to It because of the overwhelming 
strength of the enemy. It will set sail for 

a series of grand maneuvers. 
40 



The German Fleet Sets Sail 41 

'' The operations will be based upon the 
theory that a powerful enemy's fleet is ap- 
proaching the coast of Europe from the 
westward for the purpose of finding, and, 
if possible, destroying the German fleet. 
Early information of this movement hav- 
ing reached the Admiralty, our fleet has 
been dispatched to seek out and, if pos- 
sible, destroy the enemy (which has been 
reported as somewhere in the mid-At- 
lantic) , before he shall have reached Euro- 
pean waters. Our forces will be about 
equally divided into the attacking, or Red 
fleet, and the defending, or Blue fleet. Im- 
mediately after the review, the Red fleet 
will steam to the westward, and when it 
has reached a designated position, will 
commence its approach. Thirty-six hours 
later the defending, or Blue fleet will be 
dispatched to meet the enemy." 

The morning of March i8th revealed, 
drawn up under the lee of Heligoland, the 



42 America Fallen 

greatest naval force that had ever assem- 
bled under the German flag. Anchored 
in five long parallel lines, it covered many 
square miles of the calm waters of the 
Bight; and the ships, glistening in a new 
coat of paint, showed up, under the bril- 
liant sun of that bright spring morning, 
with all the picturesqueness and air of 
gaiety befitting a great national pageant. 

The first line, six miles in length, was 
made up of dreadnoughts and battle- 
cruisers, the second line of pre-dread- 
nought battleships, the third of armored 
cruisers and light cruisers, the fourth of 
destroyers and seagoing submarines, and 
the fifth of the auxiliaries. 

Promptly at the hour of twelve, the 
Kaiser, from the bridge of the Hohen- 
zollern, opened the review, and as he 
made his way up and down those far-flung 
lines, ship after ship thundered forth its 
volleys in honor of the man to whom, 



The German Fleet Sets Sail 43 

despite the recent reverses of Germany, 
the hearts of his people turned with faith 
unshaken. 

After the Hohenzollern had made the 
circuit of the fleet, she steamed a couple 
of miles to the westward, and anchored. 
Then the ships of the Red fleet, composed 
of the eight dreadnoughts of the Thurin- 
gen and Nassau classes, the battle-cruisers, 
twelve light cruisers, and thirty seagoing 
destroyers, weighed anchor and saluted the 
Kaiser, as they steamed into the North 
Sea on their way to the English Channel. 

When the flagship had passed the 
Hohenzollern, the admiral in command 
of the fleet opened his sealed orders, which 
read as follows: " As soon as it is clear of 
the English Channel, the Red fleet, avoid- 
ing the customary steamship routes, will 
proceed at slow speed to the Caribbean, 
reaching a position 50 miles to the south 
of the island of Hayti by April 5th. Here 



44 America Fallen 

the Red fleet will await further orders, 
which will reach it in due course by wire- 
less from the Commander-in-Chief of the 
Blue fleet." 

Thirty-six hours after the sailing of 
the Red fleet the Blue fleet set sail. It 
consisted of the nine dreadnoughts of 
the Koenig and Kaiser classes, the ar- 
mored cruisers, twelve light cruisers of 23 
to 27 knots' speed, forty destroyers, and 
the whole of the thirty seagoing sub- 
marines. The sealed orders of the ad- 
miral read as follows: "After clearing the 
English Channel, the Blue fleet will pro- 
ceed on a course midway between the fre- 
quented lines of steamship travel, until it 
reaches the thirty-fifth parallel. It will 
then proceed due west until it reaches a 
point of rendezvous 250 miles from the 
coast of the United States. Here it will 
meet a fleet of transports carrying 20,000 
troops. At the point of rendezvous the 



The German Fleet Sets Sail 45 

six groups of submarines will replenish 
their fuel tanks, and proceed to the respec- 
tive points of attack assigned to them at 
such speeds as to bring them off the various 
harbors at sundown on the night of March 
31st. During the night they will enter, 
assume favorable positions for attack, 
and, where conditions allow, will go to 
sleep on the bottom until the dawn of 
April 1st. 

"The transports willproceedin scattered 
formation from the rendezvous to the 
various points of landing, steaming at such 
a speed that they will be off the coast and 
within two hours' steaming of the landing 
places at sundown on March 31st. 

The battleship divisions will reach the 
entrance to the harbors of the cities which 
they are to lay under tribute at dawn on 
April I St. They will remain outside the 
extreme range of the coast fortifications' 
guns, and at a signal that our landing 



46 America Fallen 

forces have possession of the forts, they 
will enter and take position for bombard- 
ment of the cities." 

And so, on March 20, 19 16, In the 
dark of a moonless night, the last ship of 
the greatest naval raid ever planned In the 
history of the world headed silently from 
the Bight of Heligoland for the North 
Sea and the coast of North America ! 



VI 

THE CABINET MEETING AT WASHINGTON 

On the morning of March 20th, there ap- 
peared in the morning papers of the United 
States a dispatch from Berlin, stating that 
negotiations were believed to be under way 
between the governments of Germany and 
Denmark, having In view the purchase by 
Germany of the Danish island of St. 
Thomas In the West Indies. " This move- 
ment," read the dispatch, " is the first step 
in a policy of the German Empire of ac- 
quiring, by purchase, certain coaling and re- 
fitting stations for the use of its great 
merchant marine, whose activities, released 
by the Peace of Geneva, are once more in 
full swing. Germany realizes and accepts 
the new conditions which have been brought 
about by the great war. For the future, 

47 



48 America Fallen 

the resources, energy, and skill of the Ger- 
man people will be directed less to naval 
and military achievements and more than 
ever to the upbuilding and enlargement of 
her internal industries, the multiplication 
of the ships of her merchant marine, and 
the greater extension of her trade and 
commerce in all the countries of the 
world." 

On the following morning there ap- 
peared in one of the leading New York 
dailies the following letter from Washing- 
ton: " Had not yesterday's dispatch from 
Berlin, stating that negotiations were under 
way for the purchase by Germany of the 
Danish West Indian Island of St. Thomas, 
been given such unusually widespread pub- 
licity, the matter would not have attracted 
the serious attention which is being devoted 
to it in Washington. It is the general im- 
pression in well-informed circles in this city 
that the tone of the dispatch and its world- 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 49 

wide circulation bear the earmarks of the 
German official press bureau. Were it not 
for this, its moderate and pacific tone would 
carry more conviction. Be that as it may, 
the least that can be done is to take the as- 
surances of Germany's new point of view as 
to her destiny at their face value. The 
serious side of this matter for the Govern- 
ment of the United States, however, is not 
the question as to what will be Germany's 
future world policy, so much as the fact that 
the suggested purchase of St. Thomas, 
should it take place, would be a broad viola- 
tion of the principles of the ' Monroe Doc- 
trine,' and a very direct challenge to the 
reaffirmation by Congress of that Doc- 
trine, with particular respect to the waters 
and territory adjacent to the Panama 
Canal and therefore within easy striking 
distance of the same. It is stated In well- 
informed quarters that our foreign office 
has lost no time in directing its Ambassa- 



50 America Fallen 

dor in Berlin to make the necessary official 
inquiry and, if necessary, follow it up with 
the strongest representations to the Ger- 
man Government." 

On March 24th the representatives of 
the leading papers throughout the country 
were invited to meet the Secretary of State, 
who wished to make a communication on the 
subject of St. Thomas. They found him 
in the very best of humor, and he stated 
that he was pleased to tell them, that the 
slight cloud which had settled down upon 
the mutual relations of the United States 
and Germany had been completely dis- 
pelled by the announcement of the Ger- 
man Government, that no negotiations of 
any kind whatsoever were in progress for 
the purchase of the Danish West India 
Island of St. Thomas. 

One week later the early editions of the 
evening papers of March 31st displayed in 
full-face headlines the news, that the Ger- 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 5 1 

man Government had announced that it had 
purchased St. Thomas and that it proposed 
to make of it one of the strongest naval 
bases in the world. 

At the call of the President, a meeting of 
the Cabinet convened that night at the 
White House at 9 p.m. In view of the 
crisis, the members of the Cabinet arrived 
early, eager to ascertain from the Secretary 
of State the facts of the grave diplomatic 
situation. From him they learned, infor- 
mally, that, having returned late that after- 
noon from lecturing in the West on " The 
Perils of Militarism," he was able to find 
time only for brief interviews with the Ger- 
man and the British Ambassadors. The 
German Ambassador had informed him 
that the dispatch published in the afternoon 
papers was essentially correct. 

The President entered, seated himself, 
and at once asked the Secretary of State to 
give the latest information available from 



52 America Fallen 

his department. " I have to Inform you, 
sir, that the German Ambassador practi- 
cally confirms the Berlin dispatch, and that, 
in my opinion, the Island of St. Thomas Is 
at this hour the property of the German 
Government." 

'' In that case, gentlemen," said the 
President, " the situation Is free from any 
ambiguity. By the purchase of St. Thomas, 
In the face of our recent protest, Germany 
challenges one of the most vital policies of 
the United States. The Issues are clean- 
cut; either Germany must abrogate this sale, 
or we must abandon the ' Monroe Doc- 
trine,' or the matter must be submitted to 
the test of war." 

" I am for peace," said the Secretary of 
the Navy; "but I believe that our answer 
to this affront should be a sharp ultimatum 
offering to Germany the alternative of a 
return of St. Thomas to Denmark or — 
war! Germany will never dare to fight us 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 53 

over the ' Monroe Doctrine ' ; for she 
knows that back of that poHcy lies not 
only our own battle-fleet but that of Great 
Britain as well." 

" Can the Secretary of State give us any 
definite assurance as to Great Britain's at- 
titude? " asked the President. 

*' I had a conversation with the British 
Ambassador before coming to this meet- 
ing, relative to the attitude of Great Britain 
in the event of hostilities. He stated that 
he was advised by his government that the 
failure of the United States Government 
to make any protest against the violation of 
Belgian neutrality, or against the strewing 
of mines on the high seas, the bombardment 
of peaceful villages and undefended coast 
towns, and other violations of the humani- 
tarian laws of war, had so far estranged the 
sympathies of the British nation that the 
most its government could pledge itself to, 
in the event of our becoming embroiled with 



54 America Fallen 

Germany over the ' Monroe Doctrine,' 
was an attitude of strict neutrality." 

Of all the men around that board the 
President alone seemed to. realize the tre- 
mendous significance of this announce- 
ment. He bowed his head in deep thought, 
oblivious, for the time, to the discussion 
among the members as to whether Ger- 
many, exhausted as she must be by the ter- 
rific struggle of the past twenty months, 
would be willing and able to take up arms 
almost before she had laid them down. 

Suddenly, and with powerful emphasis, 
the President said: 

" Gentlemen, would it not be more sane 
and more consistent with the dignity of the 
Cabinet if, instead of indulging in specula- 
tion as to whether Germany would fight, we 
find out definitely whether we are in a posi- 
tion to do so ourselves." Turning to the 
Secretary of War and the Secretary of the 
Navy, he said: "Send for the Chief of 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 55 

Staff of the Army and the President of the 
General Board of the Navy, and I will ask 
for their expert opinion as to our prepared- 
ness for a conflict with the greatest mili- 
tary and second greatest naval power in 
the world." 

Immediately upon their entrance the 
President said: " I have asked your attend- 
ance here, so that I may Inform you that 
the Secretary of State has learned that the 
purchase of St. Thomas by Germany has 
been accomplished, and that the British 
Government has made it clear that, In the 
event of war over this violation of the 
' Monroe Doctrine,' it can pledge itself 
only to an attitude of strict neutrality. The 
questions have arisen, first, as to whether 
Germany, In view of her defeat In the re- 
cent struggle, would be willing to risk an- 
other war; and, second, as to whether, if 
she did, our naval and military forces are 
in such a condition of strength and pre- 



S6 Amei?:ica Fallen 

paredness as to warrant our entertaining a 
reasonable hope of carrying It to a suc- 
cessful Issue." 

The first to reply was the President of 
the General Board of the Navy : " In a crisis 
so serious as this I presume, Mr. President, 
that you wish me to speak with absolute 
candor and without reserve. There is no 
reason to suppose that Germany has 
emerged from this war exhausted and 
broken down. Her main fleet having re- 
mained within her ports throughout the 
war, is not only intact, but has been In- 
creased by the addition of several dread- 
noughts of the most modern design. Some 
light cruisers also have been added, to- 
gether with a considerable number of sea- 
going destroyers and submarines of the 
largest and latest type. So far as her main 
fleet is concerned, there can be no doubt 
that it is stronger and even better prepared 
for battle than it was at the commencement 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 57 

of the late war. With the menace of the 
British fleet removed, Germany Is free to 
concentrate on our coast the whole strength 
of her navy. The General Board has rea- 
son to believe that Germany several years 
ago worked out a plan for the invasion of 
the United States, and it Is believed also 
that, in the event of war, she would strike at 
once with all her available forces. It would 
be her object to overwhelm our fleet, ob- 
tain command of the sea, and land an ex- 
peditionary force, say, of 150,000 to 200,- 
000 men, which, if our fleet were destroyed, 
she would be able to accomplish within ten 
or twelve days from the commencement of 
hostilities. The decisive action would have 
to be fought between the dreadnought fleets 
of the two nations, and. If we gave battle, 
we should find ourselves opposed by a fight- 
ing line of double the strength of our own; 
for Germany can oppose twenty dread- 
noughts to our ten, and judging from such 



58 America Fallen 

naval actions as were fought in the late 
war, in which both the gunnery and the 
seamanship of the Germans were excellent, 
there can be little doubt that with such 
great odds against us, we should be de- 
feated. Had the Congress in past years 
seen fit to listen to the warnings of the 
Board, and built up a fleet sufllicient for the 
defence of the United States, we should 
have been prepared at this hour to match 
ship with ship and gun with gun. 

" The seriousness of the situation is ag- 
gravated by the fact that all of the ships of 
our pre-dreadnought classes in commission 
are now distributed in the various ports of 
the Pacific Coast, and therefore will not be^ 
available to meet that swift attack which 
the enemy would undoubtedly make imme- 
diately upon the declaration of war. This 
division of the fleet was opposed to the very 
first principles of naval strategy, and it 
was done against the strongest protest of 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 59 

this Board, backed by the judgment of 
every naval officer of the service. Mr. 
President, I have answered your question, 
and I repeat, first, that the German Navy Is 
in a state of the highest preparedness and 
efficiency; secondly, that despite the excel- 
lence of our ships and the high quality of 
our officers and men, the relative weakness 
of our navy and the wide dispersion of Its 
forces, to say nothing of the shortage of 
men and officers and lack of adequate re- 
serves, would render a successful Issue to 
the war practically impossible." 

The President of the General Board took 
his seat amid a profound silence. 

He was followed by the Chief of Staff 
of the Army, who said: "In answer to 
your first question, Mr. President, as to 
whether Germany, having emerged from a 
great war, would be ready to undertake an- 
other, I have this to say: that all history 
teaches us that a nation never fights more 



6o America Fallen 

readily and valiantly than immediately 
after the close of a war In which it was 
involved. In proof of this I would call 
your attention to the fact that the North 
showed no signs of being exhausted by the 
Civil War In the sense of being unready 
for further military effort. On the con- 
trary, It was the possession of a great army 
of well-trained and veteran soldiers, amply 
equipped and provided with all the muni- 
tions of war, that enabled her to assume an 
uncompromising attitude to France over the 
Mexican difficulty. So far from exhausting 
Russia, the unsuccessful war which that 
country waged against Japan redounded 
greatly to her benefit; so much so, that 
w^hen the recent war opened, the morale of 
her army was higher than ever before, and 
in equipment, arms, and organization she 
proved to be one of the great surprises of 
that conflict. Even the little kingdom of 
Servia fought first Turkey, then Bulgaria, 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 6i 

and finally, and with scarcely a spell of rest, 
she waged the most remarkable campaign 
of her history against a first-class military 
power. 

" In the event of the probable defeat of 
our fleet due to scattered forces and the 
overwhelming strength of the enemy, Ger- 
many would at once commence the invasion 
of our territory. And the question which I 
have been called here to answer Is : what 
would be our chances of successfully resist- 
ing such an invasion and driving the enemy 
back to the sea? 

" We have at the present hour, within 
the Continental United States, only about 
30,000 men of the regular army. Including 
mobile troops, cavalry, infantry, and field 
artillery; and we have about 16,000 men 
manning the coast defences, which is about 
one-half the necessary number. In the 
militia of the United States, which totals 
127,000 men and oflUcers on paper, only 



62 America Fallen 

104,000 are actually mustered. Of these 
104,000, only some 60,000 are ready for 
immediate service in the field; so that our 
total forces in the United States consist of 
16,000 men scattered in the coast defences 
throughout our Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific 
Coast fortifications, which would not be 
available for service in the field; 30,000 
regulars and 60,000 militia. That Is to 
say, our mobile troops capable of taking 
the field number only 90,000 men, and 
these, we must remember, are scattered 
from Maine to California and from Canada 
to the Gulf. 

" In the event of invasion by Germany in 
great force, with a thoroughly equipped 
army provided with the full complement of 
field-guns, howitzers, and other necessary 
equipment, the first contingent of which 
expeditionary force might readily amount to 
150,000 veterans of the late war, where 
should we stand ? It would be an optimistic 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 63 

forecast for me to say that we could concen- 
trate these 90,000 men at any point on the 
Atlantic Coast within thirty days of the 
declaration of war. And when the con- 
centration had been made, the troops would 
be without properly trained artillery and 
cavalry organization, and without ammuni- 
tion trains; they would be hastily organized 
and assembled for the first time in large 
bodies; they would be unprepared to act 
effectively as an army; and should these 
troops be defeated, the country would have 
back of them practically no reserve of men 
and supplies. There is a shortage of men 
and guns in the regular field artillery; we 
possess less than half the needed militia 
field batteries; and it would require three 
months of training to render what we have 
eflicient. 

" Practically all of our coast fortifica- 
tions can be taken in reverse. Many of them 
to-day are manned only by a few com- 



64 America Fallen 

panles, and It would be possible for the 
enemy, by a night landing and surprise at- 
tack, to capture the fortifications from the 
rear, thus rendering It possible for the en- 
emy's fleet to enter our harbors and lay 
our seacoast cities under tribute. With our 
seacoast cities and fortifications In the 
hands of the enemy. It would be possible 
for him, having at hand unlimited trans- 
port, a vast army, and complete equipment, 
to land In the first week of the war suffi- 
cient forces to capture all the arsenals, am- 
munition, supplies, and factories for the 
manufacture of guns, rifles, and powder, 
long before our widely-scattered mobile 
army of 30,000 regulars and 60,000 mllltia 
could be brought together, effectively to 
stay his progress. Modern wars, Mr. 
President, are machine-made, and without 
the proper machinery war cannot be waged. 
You, Mr. Secretary of State, have recently 
affirmed that such Is the patriotism of our 



Cabinet Meeting at Washington 65 

people, that you could raise an army of one 
million men between sun and sun; but I tell 
you that your million men, without the 
proper equipment of artillery and the other 
machinery of war, would be but a mob one 
million strong. Before I take my seat, Mr. 
President, I shall make so bold as to suggest 
to you in this hour of great peril (In which 
I see you actually facing the very crisis and 
conditions against which my predecessors In 
office have warned the country and its Con- 
gress for many years past) , that the naval, 
and particularly the military situation, is 
such that, in his dealings with the German 
Government, it would be advisable that 
your Secretary of State should put on kid 
gloves of the very softest texture." 

And the Secretary of State did so. 

But, six hours after that Cabinet meeting 
closed, Germany declared war on the 
United States. 



VII 

THE RAID OF THE SUBMARINES 

Report from the Commander of the Ger- 
man Submarine U-40 to the Commander- 
in-Chief of the Imperial German Expedi- 
tionary Fleet at New York: 

Flagship U-40, 
New York, 

April I, 1916. 
Commander-in-Chief, Imperial German 

Expeditionary Fleet, New York. 

Sir: — I have the honor to report that, 
following your instructions, my flotilla, con- 
sisting of U-40, U-41, and U-42, made 
the entrance to the Ambrose Channel, 
Port of New York, on the evening of 
March 31, shortly after 11 p.m. No 
moon, sky overcast. Proceeded at surface 
at half speed, in line ahead; interval three 

66 



The Raid of the Submarines 67 

hundred yards; leading boats showing 
hooded lights astern to preserve station. 

At entrance to the Narrows flotilla sub- 
merged and proceeded at one-third speed, 
reaching New York Navy Yard at 4:30 
A.M., April 1st. 

I submit a rough sketch showing the 
position of the drydocks and of the 
enemy's vessels, and also the course fol- 
lowed by the boats of my flotilla. 

In a conference held aboard our ten- 
der before reaching the American coast, I 
arranged that U-40 should attack the sub- 
marines and destroyers; that U-41 should 
torpedo the caisson gate of drydock A; 
and that U-42 should destroy the gate of 
drydock B. Each boat was to do such 
other damage as the conditions would per- 
mit. U-40 and U-41 were to enter in line 
ahead, and make the circuit of the basin; 
U-42 was to back in and take position in 
the middle of the basin. 



68 America Fallen 

Flagship U-40 led the way In at 4:45 
A.M. Sighted dreadnought at C, a battle- 
ship in drydock A, three submarines 
abreast at D, three destroyers at E, two 
destroyers alongside pier at F, and a 
battleship at G. On approaching the end 
of basin, U-40 turned hard to port, stop- 
ping port motor, and as the enemy sub- 
marines and destroyers came on the bear- 
ing (See No. i on plan) discharged my 
two bow torpedoes. Secured effective 
hits. As I swung around, brought stern 
tubes to bear on two destroyers at Pier F 
(No. 2) and scored hits with two torpe- 
does. Then brought battleship on the 
bearing (No. 3), and struck her on port 
bow. 

U-41, following 200 yards astern, 
swung around in my wake, and, upon 
bringing gate of Dock A on the bearing, 
discharged stern tubes and made a fair 
hit (No. 4). To avoid being swept into 



^w 



'^ 



-5r 



>Ox 



f^lVER 













TROYSftS 



SKETCH SHOWING COURSE OF SUBMARINES IN THE 
ATTACK ON BROOKLYN NAVY YARD. 



70 America Fallen 

the dock by rush of water, port motor was 
started; and, although U-41 was drawn 
back almost to the entrance, she held her 
own, and turning to port followed me out 
of the basin. 

Looking through periscope, I could see 
the battleship (since ascertained to be the 
Michigan)^ first lifted by the stern, then 
swung around and swept to the Inner 
end of the dock. In my opinion, the ship 
must be badly wrecked. 

Meanwhile U-42 had backed into the 
basin, and maneuvering so as to bring her 
stern tubes to bear, made a fair hit on the 
gate of Drydock B. Coming to the sur- 
face for better vision, her commander re- 
ports that, over the crest of the wave that 
rushed Into the dock, he was able to see 
four submarines picked up from the floor 
of the dock and dashed against Its Inner 
end. As U-42 was leaving the basin, she 
turned to starboard, bringing her stern 



The Raid of the Submarines 71 

tubes to bear on a big dreadnought, since 
ascertained to be the Pennsylvania, that 
was completing construction alongside 
wharf at C, and struck her with two tor- 
pedoes, one amidships and another on the 
bow. As we passed down the East River, 
we could see by the inclination of her masts 
that she was heeling rapidly to starboard. 
She Is probably now on the bottom. 

Our work being thus completed, we 
came to the surface, proceeded to the 
upper bay and joined the destroyer flotilla, 
as directed. 

I wish to commend to your favorable 
attention the excellent work of my own 
crew and of the commanders and crews of 
U-41 and U-42, who carried out their In- 
structions with great dash and precision 
and with complete success. 

I have the honor to be 
Yours obediently, 
R.' Schlesinger, Lieutenant, I. G. N. 



72 America Fallen 

Report from Commander W. Neumann 
of the Submarine U-30 to the Commander- 
in-Chief of the German Fleet at New 
York: 

Flagship U-30, 
Limon Bay, 

Panama Canal Zone, 

April I, 19 1 6. 
Commander-in-Chief, Imperial German 
Expeditionary Fleet, New York. 
Sir: — I have the honor to report, that 
following your instructions, my flotilla, 
consisting of U-30, U-31, U-32, reached 
Limon Bay, Panama Canal Zone, at night- 
fall, March 31st, convoyed by the light 
cruiser Rostock. At 3 A.M., April ist, pro- 
ceeded at the surface, under electric 
rnotors, through the dredged entrance to 
the canal, laying our course by the canal 
range lights, which we found to be ex- 
cellently placed. When off Cristobal, 



The Raid of the Submarines 73 

dropped U-32 for its attack on enemy sub- 
marine flotilla and proceeded cautiously. 
It had previously been arranged that U-30 
should attack the easterly and U-31 the 
westerly gates. Sighted Gatun locks ; and, 
as it was necessary to destroy both outer 
gate and inner guard gate, U-30 and U-31 
each fired the four bow torpedoes in quick 
succession. To make sure of destroying 
the inner (guard) gates, we turned through 
180 degrees so as to bring our stern tubes 
to bear, when each boat fired two more 
torpedoes.* 

We then rose to the surface, coupled 
up engines, and drove ahead at 18 knots. 
As I approached Cristobal, saw several 
columns of water rise from the docks, in- 
dicating that U-31 was attacking the 



* The Panama Canal being wrecked and incapa- 
ble of operation, the pre-dreadnought fleet of the 
U. S. Navy was now separated by 14,000 miles of 
water from its main fleet. 



74 America Fallen 

enemy submarine flotilla of five boats. 
Passing the docks, I slowed down, and 
awaited U-32, which I presently saw re- 
turning full speed at the surface, having 
sunk the enemy as they lay moored at the 
dock. Rejoined light cruiser Rostock, 
whose commander Informed me that, an 
hour before dawn, a landing party had 
surprised and captured the operating staff 
of the new long-distance radio plant at 
Colon, and after notifying SayvIUe Station 
In our cipher of the capture, had de- 
stroyed the electrical plant, and returned 
to the ship. 

I have the honor to be. 

Yours obediently, 

W. Neumann, Lieutenant, I. G. N, 

Report In cipher from long-distance 
naval radio station at Key West (cap- 
tured), by way of SayvIUe Station (cap- 
tured), to the Commander-in-Chief of the 



The Raid of the Submarines 75 

German Expeditionary Fleet at New 
York: 

Light Cruiser, Graudenz, 

Key West, 
April I, 19 1 6. 
Commander-in-Chief J Imperial German 
Fleet, New York. 

Surprise attack by landing party on Key 
West successful. Long-distance radio 
plant captured. Losses small, strong re- 
enforcements from transport now being 
landed. Submarine attack followed cap- 
ture of radio. 

Shall send message in the U. S. Navy 
secret code, to the commander-in-chief of 
the United States North Atlantic Fleet at 
Vera Cruz tomorrow.* 

Link, Captain, L G. N. • 

*The message sent by Captain Link was as fol- 
lows: " Germany has declared war on the United 
States. Have information, German advance fleet is 
following southern course for Caribbean ; second 
fleet on northern course for our Atlantic Coast. 



76 America Fallen 

Wireless report, via SayvUle (captured), 
to the Admiralty, German Imperial Navy, 
Berlin. 

Imperial German Expeditionary Fleet, 
New York, 
8 A.M., April I, 1916. 
Admiralty, Berlin. 

Favored by calm weather, our subma- 
rine attack, which took place In the dusk of 
early dawn, as planned, was everywhere 
successful. At Boston, New York, Norfolk, 
Charleston, Pensacola, and Cristobal, Pan- 
ama, the surprise was so complete, that all 
enemy destroyers and submarines at those 
points were either sunk or completely dls- 

Proceed full speed for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to 
take on coal and supplies. Find and destroy weaker 
advance German fleet. Send disabled ships to 
Hampton Roads, and proceed to Canal Zone, Pan- 
ama. Under cover of guns of fortifications, await 
arrival of Third and Fourth Divisions of Atlantic 
Fleet from Pacific, and proceed north in full 
strength to engage second fleet of enemy." 



The Raid of the Submarines 77 

abled. The gates at the Atlantic end of 
the Gatun locks have been torpedoed, and 
the Panama Canal put out of commission. 
Information as to success at Panama 
leached me from landing force at Colon, 
which, after sending messages, destroyed 
long-distance radio station there. An- 
other landing force captured long-dis- 
tance radio at Key West and sent 
U. S. secret code message, directing U. S. 
Atlantic fleet proceed Vera Cruz to Guan- 
tanamo. Information regarding success at 
Boston, Norfolk, Charleston, and Pensa- 
cola was relayed to me by cruisers stationed 
along coast for that purpose. Sayville Sta- 
tion captured early this a.m. by motorcycle 
corps from landing force at New York. 
My earlier report has given particulars of 
the successful landing and operations of ex- 
peditionary force at this city. The situa- 
tion is developing very favorably. 

During voyage of fleet across Atlantic, 



78 America Fallen 

sighted only few ships, whose wireless was 
put out of commission by our destroyers 
with promise of full reparation. 

BUCHNER, 

Commander-in-Chief , 
Imperial German Expeditionary Fleet. 



VIII 

CAPTURE OF NEW YORK HARBOR 
DEFENCES 

Shortly before midnight, March 31, 
19 1 6, a couple of destroyers, there being 
no moon, the sky overcast, and the night 
intensely dark, sped swiftly through the 
Ambrose Channel, and turning into the old 
Swash Channel, cut the cable connecting 
Sandy Hook with New York. While this 
was being done, a boat was sent ashore 
to cut the telegraph and telephone lines 
between Sandy Hook and Seabright. 
Soon afterwards two transports of mod- 
erate draught with all lights out, follow- 
ing the same course, headed in towards 
the Shrewsbury River as far as the depth 
of water would allow. The ships' boats, 
79 



8o America Fallen 

loaded with troops, were already swung 
out on the davits ; and, within half an hour, 
a force of i,ooo men was landed about 
two miles below the fort and began its 
silent march over the sandy neck of the 
isthmus. As It approached the buildings 
at the southern extremity of the fort, the 
force was divided, one half proceeding 
along the beach on the ocean side, the 
other half advancing along the Inner 
beach. At the time agreed upon, i : 30 
A.M., the expedition closed In with a rush 
upon the garrison, which, consisting of 
only a few companies and barely awakened 
by the shots of the sentries, was quickly 
overpowered. Before 2 A. M. Fort 
Hancock was in the hands of the 
enemy. 

At II P.M. on the night of March 31st, 
three large ships with lights out moved 
quietly into deep water anchorage between 
Far Rockaway Inlet and the entrance to 




ROUTES FOLLOWED BY EXPEDITION IN THE CAPTURE OF 

NEW York's defences. 



82 America Fallen 

the Ambrose Channel. They were sur- 
rounded by a cordon of destroyers. Had 
any fisherman's boat been allowed to pass 
the destroyers (which It was not), it 
would have seen that all of the boats on 
the transports were loaded with troops 
and swung outboard ready for lowering. 
The first boats to reach the water con- 
tained detachments of expert linemen 
and engineers of the German Imperial 
Army. They were towed by a ship's 
launch to the deserted beach, fronting the 
Brighton Beach Hotel, and, mounting 
their bicycles, they scattered and headed 
for the country lying back of Coney 
Island and the various beach resorts. The 
linemen cut all the telegraph and tele- 
phone lines leading to Brooklyn and New 
York; the engineers removed a rail from 
every trolley and elevated track leading 
to the city. Part of this detachment cov- 
ered the highways leading from the Beach 



Capture of New York Harbor 83 

and turned back all late-returning auto- 
mobiles. 

Meanwhile, under the cover of an im- 
penetrable darkness, a force of 4,000 men 
was quietly landed in the ships' boats, 
which, in strings of half a dozen, were 
towed by steam launches to the beach and 
rowed ashore through the scarcely per- 
ceptible surf. The whole force had 
landed shortly after midnight. Drawn up 
in column of fours, it commenced a rapid 
march on Fort Hamilton, some six miles 
distant. 

Reahzing that there was a bare chance 
that no warning had reached its garrison 
of 600 men, the commander of the expedi- 
tion hurried forward a bicycle detachment, 
300 strong, for a surprise attack. The 
main body advanced by the road which 
skirts the shore of Gravesend Bay. 
When it was within three miles of the 
fort, the distant roll of musketry fire 



84 America Fallen 

showed that the garrison had been warned 
and was offering a heavy resistance. Soon, 
dispatch riders from the bicycle force 
came back with the news that it had run 
into a strong skirmish line, which the gar- 
rison had thrown out across the Bath 
Beach road. The main body of troops 
was now divided, a force of i,ooo being 
sent across the Fort Hamilton road with 
orders to advance from the north as soon 
as the main attack was pressed home from 
the south. 

Despite the heroic resistance of the gar- 
rison, during which our regulars lived up 
to the finest traditions of the United 
States Army, the final rush of the German 
veterans could not be denied, and by 3 :oo 
A.M. Fort Hamilton was in the hands of 
the enemy. 

Leaving half of his force to hold the 
fort and entrench the position on the land 
side, the commander of the expedition, 



Capture of New York Harbor 85 

with 1,800 men, marched north by the 
shore road In the direction of Bay Ridge. 

Between two and three on the morning 
of April I St, a strange thing happened 
aboard the Staten Island ferryboat as it 
was about to leave its landing at the Bat- 
tery. No sooner had the last passenger 
for Manhattan stepped ashore than the 
gates were closed, and two men entered 
the pilot house, covered the captain with 
their revolvers, and ordered him instantly 
to pull out from the dock and head for 
Staten Island. 

'' What are you fellows after, any- 
way? " asked the captain. " Money? " 

" Not at all. We are officers of the 
German Naval Reserve. War has been 
declared by Germany against the United 
States; Forts Hancock and Hamilton are 
already in our possession; and," with a 
smile, " by your kind permission we shall 
make use of your boat to transfer troops 



86 America Fallen 

for the capture of Fort Wadsworth. You 
will be so good as to hand the wheel over 
to me and take that chair, making your- 
self as comfortable in mind and body as 
the exigencies of the present situation will 
allow." 

Commander Schultz, I. G. N., took the 
wheel and headed the big ferryboat for the 
Narrows. At the entrance he swung to 
port, and made for the dock of the Cres- 
cent Athletic Club, on the Brooklyn side. 
Not long thereafter was heard the tramp 
of marching men on the shore road, lead- 
ing from Fort Hamilton, and in ten min- 
utes' time the big ferryboat had backed 
away from the pier with i,8oo men 
aboard. The boat crossed the Narrows, 
and, the tide being at the flood, was en- 
abled to push her nose up to the quaran- 
tine landing at Staten Island. But no 
sooner was she made fast than the shore 
line flashed with the rifle fire of the Wads- 



Capture of New York Harbor 87 

worth garrison, which had thrown out 
scouting parties in all directions in antici- 
pation of attack. 

The ferryboat backed quickly into mid- 
stream, while a flotilla of German destroy- 
ers searched the shore with a storm of 
projectiles from their rapid-fire and ma- 
chine-guns. Under cover of this the de- 
barkation was effected. The German 
force, 1,800 strong, deployed and moved 
on the fort. Its garrison, consisting of 
only 400 men, fought it out stubbornly 
from building to building; but against such 
odds the result was inevitable, and by 4:30 
A.M. the last of the great defensive works 
of New York Harbor was captured. 

And thus it came about that by day- 
break of April 1st the mighty seacoast 
guns and the elaborate system of mortar 
batteries, which constitute the defences of 
New York, being utterly unprotected in 
the rear, fell into the hands of the enemy. 



IX 

INDEMNITY OR BOMBARDMENT 

With the coming of the dawn of April 
1st, the mantle of clouds which had helped 
to obscure the fateful events of the night 
broke and scattered before a fresh wind 
out of the northwest. Over sea and land 
and city the sun shone brilliantly in that 
crystal-clear atmosphere, which is the sure 
accompaniment of a northwest breeze. 

And as the sun came up, there lifted 
over the eastern horizon the van of a 
stately column of warships — the dread- 
nought fleet of the ImperialGermanNavy. 
Into the Ambrose Channel they headed, 
led by the Koenig, flagship of Admiral 
Buchner, commander-in-chief of the Ger- 
man expeditionary fleet. Well off shore, 
the Admiral had waited through the 

88 



Indemnity or Bombardment 89 

night for the wireless message, telling him 
that the capture of the defences of New 
York had opened a safe passage for his 
fleet into the upper bay. The message 
came, as he knew it must, in due course; 
and immediately signal was made for the 
fleet to steam at full speed for the harbor 
entrance. 

Following the flagship, in single column, 
were the dreadnoughts of the Koenig and 
Kaiser classes, making, with the Koenig, 
nine in all; a division of armored cruisers, 
headed by the Roon; and a division of 
light cruisers. 

Thrown out fanwise in the van of the 
fleet and flanking it on each side in two 
parallel columns were the destroyer flo- 
tillas. 

When that stately line had swept 
through the Narrows, signal was made 
for half speed; and after hugging the 
easterly side of the Channel, the flagship 



90 America Fallen 

of each division of dreadnoughts turned 
eight points to port and the fleet anchored. 
They lay bow and stern, in two parallel 
columns, 2,000 yards apart, with the star- 
board batteries bearing on the city of 
New York. 

Every ship was cleared for action; and 
on each the battle-flags were flying. 

Meanwhile on shore the engineer com- 
panies of the German troops in Forts Han- 
cock, Hamilton, and Wadsworth, after se- 
lecting the points of vantage for defence 
of the landward approaches, had staked 
out the trenches, and the Germans were 
feverishly digging and fortifying against 
attack. The 3-inch rapid-fire guns for pro- 
tecting the mine fields were unbolted from 
their concrete foundations, and remounted 
in selected positions on hastily-improvised 
platforms. Also, the 3-inch landing guns 
of the fleet were brought ashore in the 
ships' boats and wheeled into position. 



Indemnity or Bombardment 91 

The garrisons were strengthened by a 
force of 2,000 marines, landed from the 
fleet. 

In short, within a few hours of occupa- 
tion, the enemy had provided our coast 
fortifications with those organized de- 
fences, on the land side, which, had Con- 
gress given heed to the recommendations 
of Its military advisers, would have long 
ago been completed and would have 
served to hold the enemy at bay until re- 
enforcements could have been brought up 
in sufficient strength to drive him back to 
the sea. 

Scarcely had the flagship of Admiral 
Buchner dropped her anchor, than a 
launch, flying a white flag, left the ship, 
steamed up the harbor, and landed at the 
Battery. Captain Dornfeld of the Admi- 
ral's staff stepped ashore, strode through 
the Park to a waiting automobile, and with 
a slight nod of recognition to the chauf- 



92 America Fallen 

feur, took his seat, and was driven swiftly 
to the City Hall. It was early for an 
official call (9 A.M.), but the emissary 
guessed rightly that the Mayor would be 
in his office. His name and mission gained 
him instant audience. 

Five minutes later a call went out from 
the Mayor's office, requesting the instant 
attendance of the heads of New York's 
great banking houses and financial institu- 
tions. 

When that distinguished company had 
gathered the Mayor said: "Gentlemen, 
it is my painful duty to announce to you — 
if Indeed you are not aware of It already 
— that the fortifications protecting the ap- 
proaches to New York are in the hands of 
a German expeditionary force, which, by 
a surprise attack (following a declaration 
of war by Germany, that reached the Sec- 
retary of State, at Washington, early this 
morning), has obtained full possession. 



Indemnity or Bombardment 93 

A fleet of the enemy's dreadnoughts, nine 
in number, has entered and is now cover- 
ing the city with its guns. 

'' I hold in my hands an ultimatum from 
the Commander-in-Chief of the fleet, 
which I will read to you : 

Imperial German Expeditionary Fleet, 
Upper Bay, New York Harbor, 

April I, 19 1 6. 
To His Honor the Mayor of 
New York. 
Sir: — I have the honor to inform you 
that the German Government having de- 
clared war on the United States, a force 
was landed and, early this morning, cap- 
tured all the fortifications covering the 
approaches to New York. 

The fleet under my command, consisting 
of nine of the latest and most powerful 
dreadnoughts of the German Imperial 
Navy, is now anchored in the upper bay. 



94 America Fallen 

The heavy guns of the fleet, ninety in all, 
with an extreme range of fifteen miles, 
command practically the whole of Greater 
New York. 

I am instructed by my Government to 
demand of you a ransom of five billion 
dollars, the bond for which, together with 
a first payment of five hundred million 
dollars in gold, must be delivered on board 
the flagship, twenty-four hours after the 
delivery of this ultimatum, that is to say, 
by 9 A.M. on April 2d. Failing the receipt 
of this at or before the hour named I shall 
open fire on your city. 

If, during the twenty-four hours covered 
by the truce, any movement of troops, 
either of the regular army or of the Na- 
tional Guard, takes place, I shall imme- 
diately commence bombardment. 

I have the honor to be 

BUCHNER, 

Commander-in-Chief. 



Indemnity or Bombardment 95 

At the request of the Mayor, Captain 
Dornfeld, bearer of the ultimatum, with- 
drew to the anteroom. 

The first to speak was the Comptroller, 
who said : " Obviously the thing to be done 
is to ascertain what are the facts of the 
military and naval situation. We should 
send a request to Governor's Island for the 
Immediate attendance here of the Com- 
mander of the Department of the 
East." 

*' That I have already done," said the 
Mayor. " He was to return to-day from a 
tour of Inspection, and my secretary has 
by this time, doubtless, met him. He 
should be with us In a few minutes. Mean- 
while, gentlemen, what are you prepared 
to do In this emergency? " 

" I am satisfied," said one of the 
Mayor's Invited guests, who was famous 
alike as a pacificist and philanthropist, 
" that this whole thing is a colossal April 



g6 America Fallen 

fool's joke. It is so preposterous, in fact, 
that it appeals to my Scotch sense of the 
humorous — or the canny — I scarce know 

which. Five bil Why, that is just 

five times as much as my late friend Bis- 
marck demanded of the whole French 
nation, to liquidate the cost of the war 
of 1870. 

'' Five billions, and immediate payment 
in gold of five hundred millions ! I cannot 
believe, gentlemen, that this outrageous de- 
scent upon the shores of a friendly nation 
is made with the consent of the great Ger- 
man people, or by command of my friend 
the Kaiser. Why, I well remember that in 
the course of an intimate talk with him 
at Pots " 

But this interesting personal reminis- 
cence was interrupted by the entrance of 
Major-General Adams, to whom the 
Mayor handed the ultimatum, without a 
word. 



Indemnity or Bombardment 97 

After he had read the fateful document 
the Mayor said: *' General, we have asked 
you to come here to tell us what are the 
military and naval conditions, and what 
the city can do to escape this dilemma ? " 

" Mr. Mayor, the conditions are exactly 
as stated in this paper, and New York 
City can do — nothing! The country is 
confronted with a catastrophe for which 
the indifference and neglect of the people 
and its Congress are entirely to blame. 
That the naval and military defences of 
the United States were totally inadequate 
has been known to naval and military men 
for a generation past. Year after year 
the General Staff and the General Board 
of the Navy have warned the nation that 
its unpreparedness was such that this very 
disaster, which has now fallen upon us 
like a thunderbolt, might come at any 
hour. 

" Briefly, let me tell you the conditions: 



98 America Fallen 

Your land defences are in the hands of the 
enemy, our battleships are at Vera Cruz, 
and the lesser units of the Navy, and par- 
ticularly the destroyers and submarines, 
were sunk in our navy yards at daybreak. 
The German fleet, freed from any menace 
from forts, submarines, destroyers, or our 
own battleship fleet, is in a position abso- 
lutely to destroy New York and take its 
own time to do it. Our few scattered 
regulars in the vicinity are concentrating 
and the National Guard is assembling at 
its armories. They might in time recapture 
the forts — though even this is doubtful; 
for I learn that fresh transports are arriv- 
ing every hour and the landing of reen- 
forcements is proceeding. Moreover, ac- 
cording to this ultimatum, any further con- 
centration of our troops will bring on the 
bombardment. 

" Mr. Mayor, if you wish to save the 
city, whose total value, I believe, Mr. 



Indemnity or Bombardment 99 

Comptroller, Is twenty billion dollars, there 
is but one possible way to do it, and that 
is for you gentlemen to devise at once the 
ways and means for a cash payment in 
gold of five hundred million dollars and 
a guarantee of the balance of the five 
billion dollars demanded." 

The General left the room. With his 
departure the spirit of optimism began to 
prevail and ultimately a committee was 
appointed which decided to make a counter 
proposal of one billion, with a cash pay- 
ment of fifty millions in gold. Mean- 
while the Federal Government gave orders 
that no military demonstration should 
be made for the next twenty-four 
hours. 

This proposal was handed to Captain 
Dornfeld, who promptly returned to the 
flagship. 

The afternoon and evening wore away; 
but no answer came from the German 



loo America Fallen 

Admiral. " He is communicating with 
Berlin," said the committee; "we shall 
hear in the morning." 

And they did — from the throats of a 
hundred guns ! 



THE BOMBARDMENT OF NEW YORK 

From his point of vantage, over 700 feet 
in midair, Kennedy, the attendant on the 
observation platform of the tower of the 
Woolworth Building, might have swept 
his eye over the grandest panoramic view 
of a great city that it has ever been 
granted to mortal eye to look upon. But 
on that particular day, April 2d, and at 
that particular hour, 9 A.M., he gazed 
neither east, north, nor west. His face 
was to the south, and his eye riveted upon 
a group of dark-gray ships that stretched 
in two parallel lines across the main ship 
channel of the Upper Bay, somewhat to 
the north of Robbin's Reef — the German 
dreadnoughts ! 

He had read in the papers of the night 



102 America Fallen 

before about that absurd demand for five 
billion dollars, and from the papers, also, 
he knew that the city had made a counter 
proposal of one billion. The morning ex- 
tras had told him that no reply had come 
from the German Admiral, " who, doubt- 
less, was awaiting instructions from Ber- 
lin." He picked up a pair of field glasses 
(an investment of his which had long ago 
paid for itself, and was now a steady 
source of income in tips from country 
visitors to the tower) and sought out the 
flagship. Yes, there she was at the head 
of the first line, with the Admiral's flag fly- 
ing at the — but what was that flash, keen 
as the flash of a mirror in the sun ! Could 
it be that — and there came a crash, louder 
than that of any thunderbolt from heaven, 
and he was clutching wildly at the railing, 
as the whole mass of the tower shuddered, 
and then swayed for a few seconds like a 
reed shaken by the wind. 




MAP SHOWING HOW GUNS OF GERMAN FLEET COVEREE 
THE WHOLE OF MANHATTAN. 



104 America Fallen 

Driven by the instinct of flight, he 
rushed around the platform to the north 
side, and, looking down, saw that the 
buildings were obscured by a cloud of 
bricks, dust, and broken terra cotta, which 
fell with a prolonged roar, like a fall of 
Cyclopean hail, upon the roofs and pave- 
ment far below. Another crash! Again 
the tower staggered under the blow! 

He jumped for the elevator. Yes, it 
was intact. A few floors down it stopped. 
He managed to undo the door, crawled 
out, and ran down the stairway. Three 
flights below he stood dumfounded. The 
stairs ended in space, and through a gap- 
ing hole, where the hollow-tile flooring 
had been blasted entirely away, he saw 
that the whole of two stories, with their 
floors, outer walls, and inside partitions, 
had been blown clear into space, leaving 
the skeleton of the building — columns, 
floor beams, and braces — stripped as clean 



Bombardment of New York 105 

of Its brick and terra-cotta walls as It was 
when the erecting gang had swung it into 
place, a few years before. 

The stairs were gone; the elevator 
shafts also. There was nothing for him 
but to return. If he could not go down, he 
would go up. Odd to relate, fear was 
giving place to curiosity. He heard the 
roar of the 12-Inch shells, as they hurtled 
past the tower to fall upon the doomed 
city, and the observation platform would 
enable him to watch the stupendous spec- 
tacle of Its destruction. 

He gained the platform just in time to 
see two shells, in quick succession, pass 
through the top stories of the towering 
Equitable Life Building, and blast two 
gaping holes In the south wall. 

The next mark was the beautiful tower 
that crowned the Municipal Building. 
The percussion fuses were functioning 
with deadly precision ; nothing wrong with 



io6 America Fallen 

these German shells. Just one hit — and 
the walls and columns of the tower had 
been tumbled in a confused mass upon the 
roof of the main building and into the 
street below, leaving the twisted steel 
skeleton stripped as bare as the trees in 
midwinter. 

And now It dawned upon Kennedy that 
the Germans were shooting up the city 
upon a predetermined plan, picking out the 
principal buildings and putting a couple 
of shots Into the upper stories of each. In 
rapid succession the Singer Tower, the 
City Investing Building, the Adams Ex- 
press, and the new Western Union Build- 
ings were struck; and always the gaping 
holes were blown out hundreds of feet in 
midair, where the ruin was visible to the 
surging mass of people that swarmed out, 
like bees from a hive. Into the streets 
below. 

And then the din of the alternating 



Bombardment of New York 107 

boom of guns and crash of bursting shells 
ceased as suddenly as it began. Kennedy- 
turned his glasses on the fleet and saw a 
couple of hydro-aeroplanes lifted by 
cranes from the deck of an auxiliary ship 
and placed in the water. They rose as 
they advanced on the city, over which they 
flew at an altitude of 1,500 feet. One of 
them swung off at the Battery and began 
to fly in a circular path. The other passed 
on until it reached the Fifty-ninth Street 
power station of the Subway, above which 
it began to describe a path of the figure 
eight. Kennedy turned his glasses upon 
the fleet. One of the guns in No. i tur- 
ret of the flagship was being slowly ele- 
vated until it pointed well into the sky. 
There was a flash — a long, droning hum — 
and thirty seconds later he saw the shell 
burst against a building north of the power 
station. From the hydro-aeroplane above 
there was dropped a puff of white smoke. 



io8 America Fallen 

Another flash and this time the shell 
burst somewhat to the south of the station. 
There followed two more puffs of smoke 
from the 'plane. A few minutes later 
every 12-Inch gun on the ship rose to the 
range and flashed forth Its 860-pound shell 
loaded with deadly explosive. Kennedy 
heard the salvo go roaring by miles up In 
the air, and, lo ! the walls of the great 
power station seemed to fall asunder and 
a huge cloud of smoke and dust rose high 
In the heavens. 

The power station was utterly wrecked, 
and every train In the Subway from the 
Bronx to Brooklyn stopped with Its terror- 
stricken passengers In a darkness which 
could be felt ! 

Then the aviator sailed northeast and 
began his fateful maneuvers above the 
Seventy-sixth Street power station of the 
Elevated Railways. The same routine 
followed: two or three ranging shots; the 



Bombardment of New York 109 

dropping of smoke signals, which were 
relayed by the 'plane at the Battery to the 
ship; and, finally, the salvo. In a few 
minutes every train on the Elevated was 
out of commission. 

North the aviator now sped, until he 
was hovering like a remorseless fate above 
the Ninety-first Street power station, which 
runs the street-railway system of Man- 
hattan. The relay hydro-aeroplane moved 
up to First Street. In ten minutes' time a 
salvo had found its mark, and Manhattan 
was absolutely bereft of all means of 
transportation. 



That hive of busy workers known as 
" the downtown district " received its 
quota of the morning " rush " earlier than 
usual on April 2d. The optimistic tone 
assumed by the New York press was re- 
flected among the citizens, who were sat- 



no America Fallen 

isfied that there would be at least a period 
of negotiations preceding any bombard- 
ment, the result of which, it was not 
doubted, would be a compromise. It was 
curiosity which filled up the business offices 
half an hour earlier than usual — and 
curiosity it was that carried the employees 
by thousands to the roofs for a look at the 
Kaiser's dreadnoughts. 

But when that first 12-inch shell Hashed 
from the flagship, and went roaring over- 
head across the skies to burst in the Wool- 
worth Tower, curiosity gave place to fear 
and fear to panic. From the roof to the 
floors below the fleeing crowd of clerks 
and stenographers ran, shouting that the 
Germans were bombarding the city. Every 
office floor disgorged its occupants, and a 
growing crowd rushed for the elevators 
and filled the stairways. Out of the en- 
trance of every building there surged a hu- 
man flood, and the waters of this inunda- 



Bombardment of New York hi 

tlon met and swirled in the side streets and 
turned in increasing volume to Broad- 
way — seeking a means of quick escape by. 
the Subway. In a few minutes the streets 
were filled from building line to build- 
ing line with a frantic mob, so tightly 
jammed that all movement ceased. Then, 
as shell after shell burst far above, huge 
masses of masonry came hurtling down 
upon that hapless mob, killing and wound- 
ing the unfortunates where they stood, 
held fast. And still the terror-stricken 
pushed their way, with that fatal accumu- 
lation of pressure which marks a fleeing 
mob, out of every office-building entrance ; 
the emerging mass acting with the cumula- 
tive effect of a hydraulic ram upon the 
already compacted mass in the streets. 
Under that fatal pressure the weak went 
down, ribs were crushed in, breathing was 
no longer possible. By the hundred, the 
people died where they fell. 



112 America Fallen 

And up from the streets of the city 
there rose the prolonged wail of the 
dying, answered from above by the 
savage roar of the flying shells, and the 
swish and clatter of the ever-falling 
masonry. 

There was a slight relief at each Sub- 
way entrance, into which the waters of 
that stricken human flood twisted and gur- 
gled like water through a sink. And fur- 
ther relief was given on the outskirts of 
the mob, where such of the police as had 
not been engulfed, attacking from the side 
streets, unloosened the fringe of the hor- 
ror, by reminding the terror-stricken that 
the Elevated and the ferries afforded 
other avenues of escape. 

And then, as the g: :at power stations 
fell beneath the salvos of the bombard- 
ment, and every wheel in New York's vast 
system of transpc- nation ceased to turn, 
fear redoubled ZAd frantic horror began 



Bombardment of New York 113 

again to crush the life out of that hope- 
abandoned mob. 

And just at this very hour, as though the 
anguish were not complete, the lawless 
element in the city broke loose in every 
quarter in a wild orgie of pillage and ar- 
son. From many a resort of crime and 
infamy, the gunman, the safe-cracker, and 
all the brood that hides from law and 
order streamed forth to gather in the 
spoil. The police, aye the whole ten thou- 
sand of them, swept off their feet by the 
wild terror of Manhattan's millions, were 
unable to co-operate for effective work. 
Crime had found its millennium. Into the 
jewelry stores, into the houses of the rich 
on Fifth Avenue and the West Side, a 
mob, armed and stopping at no crime of 
violence, broke its way, gathering into grip 
and handbag, or thrusting into pocket at 
each grasp, the ransom of a prince ! 

The terror of the bombardment swept 



114 America Fallen 

through the densely populated tenement- 
house district like the rush of a prairie 
fire, and at once there arose in a babel of 
many tongues the universal cry: " To the 
bridges; to the bridges!" And to the 
bridges they swept, men, women, and chil- 
dren, Jew, Italian, Greek, and Russian, 
bearded rabbi and toddling child, in a 
wild stampede to put the river between 
themselves and the bursting shells. East- 
ward to the bridges they surged, half a 
million strong; the mob becoming denser 
as it converged on the various approaches. 
Overwhelmed by that human flood, 
vehicular traffic stopped. Roadways and 
footways, subway tracks and trolley tracks, 
all were submerged. The Manhattan 
Bridge, among others, in spite of its width 
of 1 20 feet, was packed from rail to rail 
with the fleeing host, and when the crush 
was at Its worst the Inevitable happened. 
Somewhere a fugitive shpped, a foot pass- 



Bombardment of New York i i 5 

ing between the railroad ties of the tracks 
— someone stayed to help — more stum- 
bled and fell. The crowd behind, In- 
furiated by the delay, made a rush, throw- 
ing down others In the van. Soon, there 
was a mass of struggling, cursing human- 
ity wedged tight from rail to rail, prevent- 
ing down others In the van. Soon there 
thousand behind stayed not their rush. 
The crushing out of life that was happen- 
ing on lower Broadway was being repeated 
150 feet above the East River. 

And just then there sailed above the 
bridge, high In air, a German hydro- 
aeroplane. The mob saw It and knew the 
meaning of the dread portent. " God In 
Heaven, they are going to shell the 
bridge ! " And then the strange thing hap- 
pened. The crowd stopped Its convulsive 
struggle. Except for the down-trodden 
and dying, silence fell on that multitude, 
and, awestruck, they gazed skyward at the 



ii6 America Fallen 

harbinger of death and waited for his 
messengers. 

Then they came. A roar as of an ex- 
press train on the Elevated, and with a 
blast of air that swept down upon the vic- 
tims, a 1 2-inch shell passed over the center 
of the span. 

But before signaling to correct the 
range, the aviator planed down so as to 
obtain a closer view of the bridge. With 
amazement he saw that it was swarming 
from end to end with a helpless mass of 
humanity. The purpose of the bombard- 
ment was to damage — not destroy; and he 
realized that if the shells of the Koenig 
should cut the bridge cables, 50,000 souls 
would be hurled to their death in the river 
below! 

Hastily he rose and signaled to the 
Koenig to cease fire. 



XI 

THE CAPITULATION OF NEW YORK 

In response to the call of the Mayor, the 
Committee representing the financial in- 
stitutions of the City met in his office 
promptly at 9 A.M. on April 2d. A mem- 
ber was proposing that a wireless message 
be dispatched to the German Admiral, 
requesting an early answer to the Commit- 
tee's proposal of the day before, when the 
boom of a heavy explosion shook the 
building, and the Mayor, looking up 
through the southwest window, quietly re- 
marked, " Gentlemen, the answer has 
come ! " The Committee turned and saw 
in the fair white northern face of the beau- 
tiful Woolworth Tower a yawning cavity 
— and, filling the air below, a mass of 

falling debris! 

117 



ii8 America Fallen 

The crisis had come, swift and appal- 
ling; and with a steady nerve and a quick- 
thinking brain each man of that Commit- 
tee set himself to meet it. There was 
much to do, and it must be done quickly. 
First, as to that cash payment of half a 
billion in gold. Was there that much gold 
in the city? The question was quickly an- 
swered. In the sub-treasury was one 
hundred and twenty million dollars ; In the 
banks and other depositories, four hun- 
dred and fifty million dollars, more or less. 
Yes, the cash payment could be made — 
that very day. If demanded. And, as for 
the other four-and-a-half billions, — well. 
New York, even with that financial burden 
to carry, was better than a New York 
thrown down by bombardment and rav- 
aged by a universal conflagration. 

And so, while the cannon thundered and 
the fleeing citizens surged past the City 
Hall, seeking a way of escape by Subway, 



Capitulation of New York i 19 

Elevated, or Bridge, those men seated In 
the private office of the Mayor worked 
out a plan for the salvation of the city. 

At 10 A.M. a wireless message was 
sent to the fleet anouncing the capitulation 
of the city and the start of the Mayor, the 
Comptroller, and Committee to confer 
with the Admiral on board the Koenig. 

;Guarded by a cordon of police, who 
with difficulty had fought their way to the 
City Hall, the Mayor and Committee were 
escorted to the foot of Spruce Street on the 
East River, where they boarded the patrol 
boat of the Police Department and 
steamed out to the Upper Bay. 

The roar of the bombardment had 
ceased, and save for a few shell holes in 
the taller buildings, there was nothing 
to indicate that, for one fell hour, Hell 
had vented its fury upon their noble city. 

Arrived at the gangway of the Koenig, 
the Mayor and his Committee were re- 



I20 America Fallen 

ceived by the executive officer with every 
mark of distinction, and escorted to the 
Admiral's quarters. 

He was tall, blond, blue-eyed, affable, 
and supremely ceremonious. Moreover, 
he spoke most excellent English. 

" He was sensible," he said, " of the 
great honor conferred upon the German 
Navy, upon the flagship, and upon himself, 
by the presence on board of the Mayor of 
the great commercial metropolis of the 
Western Hemisphere, attended by so 
many representatives of its leading finan- 
cial houses. 

" He could have wished that this meet- 
ing had taken place under less distressing 
circumstances; but — well — war is war, and 
upon him, as one under authority, had 
fallen the unhappy duty of bringing their 
city to terms by force of arms." 

Picking up a document from his table 
he said: "The conditions on which I am 



Capitulation of New York i 2 1 

instructed to cease all further naval at- 
tack on New York are as follows : 

" 1. The payment by the City of New 
York of an Indemnity of five billion 
dollars. 

" II. The payment of the first install- 
ment to be made in the form of five hun- 
dred million dollars in gold, the same to be 
dehvered within twenty-four hours of the 
signing of this agreement. 

" III. The surrender of the Custom 
House, New York, and its occupation by 
German forces until the payment of the 
balance of the indemnity has been com- 
pleted. 

" IV. The surrender of the Chelsea 
steamship piers for the use of the German 
troopships. 

" V. The surrender of all armories in 
New York and Brooklyn for the use cf the 
troops of the German Expeditionary 
Force. 



122 America Fallen 

*' It is my wish, Mr. Mayor, that, for 
the present, at least, you continue to ex- 
ercise full civil control of New York, un- 
der the rules of military occupation of my 
government." 

After very brief conference the articles 
of capitulation were duly signed, and 
shortly thereafter the Police Department 
launch cast off from the gangway of the 
Koenig and headed for Manhattan. 

Silent and preoccupied, the group of 
men on her upper deck gazed wistfully 
upon the stately buildings of lower Man- 
hattan, which lifted their shell-scarred 
summits far into the blue of that sunlit 
April day. 

" Well," said one of the party, " such 
are the caprices of Fortune." 

*' Nay, sir," sharply retorted the Mayor, 
" say rather that such are the fruits of 
folly and criminal neglect! " 



Capitulation of New York 123 

That afternoon, closed and heavily 
guarded motor vans began to make their 
way from the banks of New York City 
to a German transport at Pier No. i, the 
Battery; and before noon of the day fol- 
lowing five hundred million dollars, or 
about 1,000 tons, in gold, had been put 
aboard, and the vessel, under heavy naval 
escort, had sailed for a German port. 



XII 

THE SURRENDER OF BOSTON 

The combined sea and land expedition for 
the capture of Boston by a surprise attack 
consisted of a division of dreadnoughts, 
some destroyers, a flotilla of six sub- 
marines, and a landing force of 5,000 
picked veterans of the European war. 

The defences of Boston consisted of 
seven forts. Two of these. Fort Heath 
and Fort Banks, were built on the eastern 
shore of the peninsula which incloses Bos- 
ton Harbor on the north. The others 
were advantageously placed on five of the 
islands which cover the approaches to the 
harbor. Three of these, Forts Standish, 
Warren, and Revere, formed the outer line 
of defence; the inner line consisted of Forts 

Strong and Andrews. They were heavily 
124 



Surrender of Boston 125 

armed with 10- and 12-Inch rifles — the lat- 
ter having an extreme range of 13,000 
yards. There were also some 12-inch 
mortar batteries of approximately the same 
range. 

Although the range exceeded the effec- 
tive fighting range of any existing battle- 
ships at the time the forts were built, It was 
far short of the range of naval guns in the 
year 19 16. Moreover, the Boston forts, 
like those defending New York, were open 
to attack from the rear. All of the guns 
and mortars pointed seaward. Further- 
more, thanks to the parsimony of Congress, 
the whole of these defences were under- 
manned, there being only 1,100 men dis- 
tributed among the seven forts. 

The expedition timed Its approach so 
as to be within a few hours' steaming of 
the Massachusetts coast at sundown, March 
31, where it divided, the four transports 
carrying 5,000 men making for Salem, 



126 America Fallen 

and the warships moving on Boston. The 
submarines, having filled their fuel tanks 
from the tender, pushed forward until they 
reached the outer defences, when they sub- 
merged and, under cover of the dark, 
worked their way carefully through the 
channels, reaching Boston Navy Yard in 
the early dawn. Here, at 4:30 A.M., they 
torpedoed and sunk every ship in the yard, 
sending to the bottom the armored cruiser 
Brooklyn^ the scout cruisers Chester and 
Salem, the cruiser Chicago, the gunboat 
Castine, and two or three smaller unit§. 
The submarines then submerged to the bot- 
tom and went to sleep, awaiting develop- 
ments. 

The transports, favored by an unusu- 
ally dark night, there being no moon, 
reached Salem undetected. Debarkation 
commenced at 2 a.m. The first troops to 
be landed consisted of a bicycle corps, 1,500 
strong, which immediately made a dash for 



Surrender of Boston 127 

Boston, twelve miles distant. Five hun- 
dred of these followed the shore road, and 
at 4 A.M. rushed the garrison, 200 strong, 
of Forts Heath and Banks, which they took 
in reverse. The rest of the force, 1,000 
strong, entered Boston, one half capturing 
the Navy Yard, while the other, crossing 
the Charles River, seized the large motor 
fishing boats and other motor craft at the 
docks and took them over to the Navy 
Yard. 

Meanwhile the debarkation of the bal- 
ance of the expeditionary force, 3,500 
strong, was being effected. The troops 
landed in light marching order, with two 
days' rations In their knapsacks, and ac- 
companied by strong batteries of machine- 
guns. By daylight the column was on the 
march, and at 8 a.m., after a sharp engage- 
ment In the suburbs, and almost within 
sight of Bunker Hill, with such of the 
militia as It was possible hastily to assem- 



128 America Fallen 

ble, the enemy moved Into the Navy Yard 
and began to embark on the miscellaneous 
craft which had been gathered there. 

Meanwhile the German dreadnoughts 
had moved in on the outer line of seacoast 
defences. They anchored at a distance of 
17,000 yards, or between 2,000 and 3,000 
yards beyond the extreme range to which 
the guns of the forts could carry. Ac- 
companying the fleet was an aeroplane 
tender, and by the time the ships were ready 
to open fire three aeroplanes were circling 
above the outer forts — Standlsh, Warren, 
and Revere. 

The calm sea and clear weather which 
favored the operations of April ist along 
the Atlantic Coast prevailed at Boston. 
Vision was exceptionally good, and the 
German gunners, being outside the range 
of the forts and quite unmolested, and 
being guided by aeroplane observation, 
quickly got on the target, and placed their 



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MAP SHOWING HOW GERMANS BOMBARDED BOSTON FORT 

FROM A POSITION OUTSIDE THE RANGE 

OF THEIR GUNS. 



130 America Fallen 

high explosive ii-Inch shells with deadly 
accuracy. After half an hour of bombard- 
ment a division of destroyers was sent In to 
draw the fire of the forts by steaming 
swiftly across their front at 10,000 yards' 
range. There was a vigorous reply from 
Forts Warren, Strong, and Andrews, but 
the fire from Forts Standlsh and Revere was 
feeble. The bombardment continued for 
another hour, the fire being directed chiefly 
at the Inner forts. 

It was now 9 a.m. and shortly thereafter 
one of the aeroplanes returned to report 
that the motor-boat fleet, carrying the land 
forces, had been descried moving down the 
bay to take the forts In reverse. The signal 
'* cease fire " was made from the flagship, 
and the garrisons, already decimated and 
shaken up by shell fire, faced about to meet 
the new attack. 

The motor-boat fleet moved upon the 
inner forts (Strong and Andrews) In two 



Surrender of Boston 131 

parallel columns, flanked on each wing by 
three submarines, which, moving awash, 
had broken out the 3-inch guns with which 
they were armed. Under the cover of these 
guns, which swept the landing with a storm 
of shells, the German troops were landed, 
and the garrison, consisting in each case of 
only four companies, after a spirited re- 
sistance, was forced to surrender. The ex- 
pedition then moved on the three outer 
forts, and as there was only a single 
company in each, and half of these 
had been killed or wounded by the 
bombardment, they offered little or no 
resistance. 

As soon as the Admiral saw the German 
flag flying over the forts, he moved into a 
position from which he could cover the 
whole of Boston with his guns. A launch, 
bearing a flag of truce, left the flagship, 
and within half an hour the city was con- 
fronted with an ultimatum, demanding the 



132 America Fallen 

payment of three billion dollars, two hun- 
dred millions of which was to be delivered 
aboard ship within twenty-four hours. The 
custom house and the armories were to be 
occupied Immediately by German troops. 
The Mayor was to remain In civil control, 
under the rules of German military occupa- 
tion. Finally, the ultimatum stated that If 
any movement of the regular or militia 
forces, having In view the recapture of Bos- 
ton, took place, the fleet would open on the 
city with all Its guns. 

The Mayor called a meeting of the lead- 
ing bankers and an effort was made to ob- 
tain a mitigation of the terms. The truce 
was to expire at 2 p.m., April 2d; but on 
learning that the bombardment of New 
York had begun, the city at once capit- 
ulated. 

That night one of the transports was 
sent round from Salem, and by noon of 
April 3d she had sailed for a German port 



Surrender of Boston 133 

with two hundred million dollars in her 
hold. 

On the afternoon of April 2d two Ger- 
man armored cruisers and two light cruis- 
ers arrived at Boston from New York, and 
that evening the German Admiral, leaving 
these ships, some destroyers, and the sub- 
marines to cover the city, sailed with his 
division of dreadnoughts for New York. 

On the evening of April 3d the dread- 
nought fleet of Admiral Buchner put to sea 
and picked up the division from Boston, 
and the fleet of thirteen dreadnoughts 
sailed for the Caribbean. 



XIII 

THE CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON 

At Intervals during the morning of March 
31st four large German merchant ships, 
duly consigned to Baltimore for the avowed 
purpose of rushing to that port certain or- 
ders for German goods which had been 
delayed by the war, passed In through the 
Capes, reported to the signal station, and 
proceeded up the Chesapeake. In the upper 
reaches of the Bay, after sundown, they 
closed up; and about midnight they an- 
chored well away from the course followed 
by shipping, and abreast a fine stretch of 
sandy beach which lines the western shore 
of the Bay, a few miles below Annapolis. 
The sky was clouded and the night Intensely 
dark. 

Two hours before midnight commenced 
134 



Capture of Washington i 3 5 

the debarkation from these ships of a force 
of 5,000 picked bicycle troops. Accom- 
panying them were several batteries of 
machine-guns, bicycle-mounted and capable 
of being quickly assembled. The first com- 
pany to land was told off to cut all tele- 
graph, telephone, and railway lines leading 
to Washington. A small detachment from 
this company, composed of fast riders, — 
more than one of whom, in past years, had 
come over for the international races in 
Madison Square, — pushed on at full speed 
for Washington, with instructions to mine 
the tall towers of the Arlington long-dis- 
tance radio station, lay the wires, and be 
prepared to wreck the plant as soon as the 
expeditionary force reached the city. 

Except for the machine-guns (each of 
which was carried between a pair of tan- 
dems) the whole force was in the lightest 
possible marching order, each man carrying 
only two days' rations and an extra supply 



136 America Fallen 

of ammunition. As soon as the troops 
landed, lamps were lit and they moved off 
silently into the night. By 2 130 a.m. the 
whole expedition was ashore. Just before 
daybreak the bulk of the raiding force, 
assembled on several roads leading into 
Washington, made its rush for the capture 
of the city. 

Carefully planned though it was, the sur- 
prise was not complete. Willard Bronson, 
a correspondent recently returned from 
service at the front with the German army, 
had run out on his motorcycle on the even- 
ing of March 31st, to visit an old friend 
who lived some fifteen miles, or halfway 
from Washington, on the Annapolis road. 
There was much to tell; and it was be- 
tween 2 and 3 A.M. when he left the 
house and brought his machine around 
from the stable. He was just about to 
light up, when he paused, match in hand, 
as the glare of a hundred lights shone 



Capture of Washington 137 

down the road, and the van of the raid- 
ing force swept noiselessly by on the other 
side of the heavy privet hedge separating 
the lawn from the road. 

'' German mounted bicycle troops ! Im- 
possible; absurd ! " But Bronson had been 
trained to clear thinking and quick action. 
There flashed Into his mind the startling 
headlines of the afternoon papers, announc- 
ing the purchase of St. Thomas. 

But this would be war before war was 
declared. True; yet there was the prece- 
dent of Japan's attack on Port Arthur. 

Bronson slipped quietly back to the house 
and burst In upon his astonished host: 
" Quick, tell me, is there any road by which 
I can cut around into the main road — any 
path, cattle-track, anything on which a 
wheel can turn? Don't stare at me like 
that, man ! Here, come to the window — see 
those lights sweeping by ? It is the German 
army moving on Washington. I must warn 



138 America Fallen 

them — the Government — or they will make 
a bag of the whole Cabinet before dawn ! " 

"Yes; two fields away — good grassland 
— you can ride — there Is a country road 
which Intersects the main road two miles 
from here; but you must ride like the very 
devil!" 

With lamp alight he swept across the 
first field — good; the gate was open. The 
gate to the road was shut — cruel delay, 
with the fate of a nation hanging on the 
chance of a minute 1 

Again he swung Into the saddle, and, 
thank God, the searchlight beam of his 
lamp showed, straight and fair, a smooth, 
though grass-grown, lane. Wide went the 
throttle, and, ah ! how he would have liked 
to open the muffler too. Thirty, forty, fifty 
miles an hour. The road swung gently 
away to the left. Now it swung back 
again, and there, abreast of him, through 
the trees and across the fields, he could see 



Capture of Washington 139 

the head of the raiding column. The lane 
and the road were convergent. And now 
he noticed that the leading lights were 
stringing out. He was discovered; the 
purr of his motor and the gleam of his 
lamp had been noted, and they were sprint- 
ing to head him off. Open went his muffler, 
and, head down, he, the modern Paul 
Revere, swept Into the main road, just one 
hundred yards ahead of the leading troops. 
With brake hard down and machine skid- 
ding over to the further ditch, fortune fa- 
vored his desperate dash, and he straight- 
ened out for Washington. 

Behind, he heard the clash of falling bi- 
cycles. *' Ah ! they have jumped from their 
machines to take a long shot " — and above 
the roar of his motor he heard the crackle 
of rifle fire. Zip, zip, zip, the bullets sang. 
" I am going a good mile a minute now — 

they'll never get me — Oh, H ! " Like 

a blow from a baseball bat it struck him — 



I40 America Fallen 

right leg — in the calf. " Too bad — but I 
can see the lights of Washington — only a 
few minutes, and I shall be at the tele- 
phone exchange. God, how It stings ! " 
He reached down and his hand felt the 
gush of the warm blood. 



The routine of work for the night force 
at the central telephone exchange at Wash- 
ington, D. C, was suddenly broken at 3 :30 
A.M., April 1st, when the door was labori- 
ously opened and a man, on all fours, 
crawled Into the room, dragging after him 
a broken leg that left a smear of blood on 
the floor. Propping himself on his hands, 
he raised his face, white and twitching, and 
shouted In a burst of staccato sentences: 
" The Germans are coming — landed at An- 
napolis — here In half hour — warn members 
of Cabinet escape Union Station — tell 
garage send taxis each house — quick, quick, 



Capture of Washington 141 

for the love of our country — the Presi- 
dent first, then the " 



And with a groan he crumpled up and 
lay as though dead before the gaping night 
force. 

Then the spell broke — they rushed to the 
fallen man. " Why, it's Bronson, the war 
correspondent," said Murphy, " and if 
Bronson says the Germans are coming, com- 
ing they are. For God's sake get busy." 

And they did so to such good effect that, 
as the enemy swept into the city in the early 
dawn, there pulled out of the Union Sta- 
tion, for Philadelphia, an express train, 
bearing the members of the Cabinet and 
their families, together with the ranking 
official in the Departments of War, the 
Navy, and Finance. 

The seizure of the city was accom- 
plished with characteristic precision and 
dispatch. Every company and detachment 
had its objective. The advance force, 1,200 



142 America Fallen 

strong, with 20 machine-guns, pushed on to 
the Aqueduct bridge, crossed the Potomac, 
and advanced on Fort Myer from the 
north. 

Another force of equal strength made 
for the Long Bridge, crossed, and ap- 
proached the fort from the southeast. 

Meanwhile the balance of the expedition 
as it reached the city took possession of 
the principal Government buildings. Five 
companies seized the Treasury; five com- 
panies the State, War, and Navy building; 
three companies took possession of the 
Capitol; and a detachment seized the Arm- 
ory, capturing several machine-guns. Other 
detachments seized the banks, the Union 
Station, the Telephone Exchange, and the 
offices of the Postal Telegraph and Western 
Union. The balance of the troops, 1,000 
strong, moved on the Washington Bar- 
racks. 

Among the warnings sent out when Bron- 



Capture of Washington 143 

son, the war correspondent, crawled into 
the Telephone Exchange, were two to the 
garrisons at Fort Myer and Washington 
Barracks. 

At the former the force consisted of 
400 cavalry and 400 field artillery with 
several batteries of field-guns. The garrison 
of Washington Barracks consisted of about 
600 men. The commanders of each post 
decided to unite their forces on the left 
bank of the Potomac, and the Fort Myer 
garrison at once moved out, a cavalry screen 
being thrown forward to seize the Long 
Bridge. About a mile from the bridge they 
ran into a strong skirmish line of the second 
German force, and fell back on their main 
body, which hastily entrenched itself, the 
field batteries moving to take up a position 
to the rear. While the batteries were tak- 
ing position, and before all the guns were 
unlimbered, the first German force, which, 
finding Fort Myer evacuated, had pushed 



144 America Fallen 

on with all speed, came up in the rear and 
opened a murderous machine-gun and rifle 
fire. 

The cavalry wheeled and charged 
straight at the guns. Such was the im- 
petus of their onrush, that those who sur- 
vived that decimating fire, some 200 in all, 
broke through the first and second line be- 
fore they were brought down. Those of 
the guns which could be brought into action 
swept the enemy with shrapnel at close 
range. Such an unequal contest could have 
but one issue. The gun detachments with- 
ered under the pitiless hail of German bul- 
lets, and when the enemy charged home, 
not a man was on his feet to dispute posses- 
sion of the guns. 

Leaving their own and the American 
wounded to be cared for by the stretcher- 
bearers of Fort Myer garrison, the Ger- 
mans, now some 2,000 strong, mounted 
and moved back to the city. Here, on learn- 



Capture of Washington 145 

ing from dispatch riders that the force sent 
to the Washington Barracks was heavily 
engaged with the garrison in the neighbor- 
hood of the steamboat wharves, they swung 
around to the south and took the enemy on 
the right flank and rear. 

An hour later the Barracks and the Army 
War College were captured, and by noon of 
April 1st, the small American forces hav- 
ing been annihilated or captured, Wash- 
ington passed into the hands of the Ger- 
mans. 

At dawn of the same day, the German 
submarines, having passed in through the 
Capes by night, sank or destroyed every 
warship in the Norfolk yards, and at the 
yards of the Newport News Shipbuilding 
Company. Before the Germans had taken 
possession of Washington, the news was 
flashed from Philadelphia that a similar 
submarine raid had resulted in the sinking 
of the South Carolina and of the seven bat- 



146 America Fallen 

tleshlps In reserve and in ordinary, at the 
League Island Yard, namely, the Alabama, 
Illinois^ Kearsarge, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Ohio, and Wisconsin. 

At noon, April ist, the signal stations at 
Cape Charles and Cape Henry reported 
that a fleet of transports, flying the 
German flag, was converging on the 
entrance. 

The rifle and mortar batteries at Fort 
Monroe were instantly manned, and to the 
amazement of all but the few who knew the 
limitations of range, the fleet, in line ahead, 
steamed boldly for that forbidden ground, 
the main entrance to the Chesapeake, lying 
to the south of the middle shoal. As the 
fleet reached the entrance it slowed down, 
and using the lead, crept in, hugging closely 
the southerly edge of the shoal. 

And then Fort Monroe spoke. From 
her batteries there roared forth a salvo, 
which, twenty seconds later, struck the 



Capture of Washington 147 

water 13,000 yards away, sending up huge 
geysers of water. The projectiles, rlcochet- 
tlng In great sweeping arcs, finally died 
down Into the water some thousands of 
yards beyond. 

Then came the mortar-battery salvo. 
Lifting their stubby barrels to an angle of 
45 degrees they shot their 12-Inch shells 
skyward. Several miles they rose, and just 
one minute after the discharge four 
columns of water rose about 1,000 yards 
from the ships. 

'' I knew It,'' said the captain of the lead- 
ing troopship, an officer of the German 
naval reserve; '' 18,000 yards is the ex- 
treme range of those baterles, and a study 
of the chart convinced me that we could 
just squeeze through." 

And next day, April 3d, 5,000 German 
Infantry, together with the proper quota 
of engineer corps, field batteries, signal and 
medical corps, and the full equipment for a 



148 America Fallen 

force of 10,000 men, were landed below 
Annapolis and moved on to Washington. 

And on April 3d two events of the first 
magnitude occurred: the President of the 
United States announced that, acting on the 
advice of his military advisers, he had di- 
rected that the seat of Government be 
moved to Pittsburg; and to Pittsburg came 
a proposal from Germany to cease all mili- 
tary operations, upon the agreement by the 
United States to pay an indemnity of twelve 
billion dollars, an advance payment of one 
billion dollars in gold to be made on the day 
the indemnity bond was signed. 



XIV 

SEEKING THE GERMAN FLEET 

How It came about that I witnessed the 
greatest naval battle of all history from 
the fire-control platform of the flagship 
Oklahoma is readily explained. In the 
previous year I had offered for the consid- 
eration of the Navy Department a system 
of •" director firing," which had been re- 
jected on the ground that its mechanism 
was too delicate to stand the shock of 
battle. 

The Department was developing a sys- 
tem of its own which gave great promise 
of success; and, in recognition of my in- 
terest in the subject, I had been invited 
to witness the final tests of the installation 
during the spring target practice of the 

Oklahoma. 

149 



150 America Fallen 

There are moments in one's life which 
stand out with sharp definition amid the 
crowded and more or less blurred mem- 
ories of the past. Among these I shall 
ever reckon the breakfast hour, on the 
morning of April ist, in the wardroom of 
the Oklahoma, flagship of the United 
States North Atlantic fleet, which was at 
anchor, on that particular day, off Vera 
Cruz. 

The Mexican situation had reached one 
of its ever-recurring crises, with the result 
that the army had moved down to the 
Mexican border and the fleet to this Mexi- 
can port. 

The conversation in the wardroom 
mess had been drifting along in a desultory 
way, when an orderly entered with a re- 
quest for the presence of the executive oflH- 
cer In the Admiral's cabin. In a few min- 
utes Commander Burnley returned, hold- 
ing In his hand a wireless message. There 



Seeking the German Fleet i 5 1 

was that In his face which caused a sudden 
hush. 

" I have here a radio message from 
Washington by way of Key West," he 
said, "which I will read: 'Germany has 
declared war on the United States. Have 
information German advance fleet is fol- 
lowing southern course for Caribbean; 
second fleet on northern course for our At- 
lantic coast. Proceed full speed for Guan- 
tanamo Bay, Cuba, to take on coal and 
supplies. Find and destroy weaker ad- 
vance German fleet. Send injured ships to 
Hampton Roads and proceed to Canal 
Zone, Panama. Under cover of guns of 
fortifications, await arrival of Third and 
Fourth Divisions of Atlantic fleet from 
Pacific, and proceed north in full strength 
to engage second fleet of enemy.' " 

The tidings that war had been declared 
on the United States was flashed through 
the fleet, and a hurry call was sent ashore 



152 America Fallen 

for the return of the landing force of sea- 
men and marines. Ships that were coaling 
cast off their colliers, and before noon the 
fleet had sailed. 

Shortly before midnight of April 5th 
the Oklahoma led the way into Guan- 
tanamo Bay, Cuba. The 6th was spent 
in coahng, taking aboard full supplies of 
stores and ammunition, and sending ashore 
the boats and all superfluous ship's furni- 
ture. On the 7th, shortly before dawn, 
the fleet, stripped for action, had sailed to 
the eastward, to " find and destroy the 
enemy." 

Overnight, Admiral Willard, Command- 
er-in-Chief of our fleet, had thrown out to 
the eastward a strong scouting force — such 
as it was — strong in numbers, but utterly 
Inadequate for Its purpose. It consisted 
of the three armored cruisers Washington, 
North Carolina, and Tennessee and four 
divisions of destroyers. 



Seeking the German Fleet 153 

The cruisers were powerful ships carry- 
ing four 1 0-inch and sixteen 6-inch guns, 
and they were capable of breaking through 
any screen of the German light cruisers of 
the Karlsruhe type; but they would be 
utterly at the mercy of the 28-knot battle- 
cruisers possessed by Germany, their best 
speed being only a little over 22 knots. 

The destroyers, twenty in all, should 
never have been dispatched on such service. 
Their place was with the main fleet. Had 
the recommendations of the General 
Board been followed, we would have pos- 
sessed, on this disastrous day, a dozen 27- 
knot scouts, and our main fleet, the first 
line of defence of the United States against 
Invasion, would not have been left exposed 
on both flanks to the destroyer attacks of 
the enemy. 

By the courtesy of the executive officer I 
found myself on the forward fire-control 
platform of the Oklahoma. As we cleared 



154 America Fallen 

the entrance to Guantanamo Bay and 
swung around to the eastward, from my 
station, 120 feet above the sea, I gazed 
with no Httle pride at the two divisions of 
dreadnoughts strung out astern, ship be- 
yond ship at 500-yard intervals, in a stately 
column which covered some three miles of 
water. 

Below me was the flagship, fresh from 
the builders' hands. Seen from above, she 
looked wonderfully like those deck-plan 
drawings which I had studied in the naval 
annuals. Forward was the new type of 
3-gun turret, with its long, lean 14-inch 
guns looking for all the world like Brob- 
dingnagian lead pencils. Abaft of it was 
turret No. 2, with its pair of guns reach- 
ing clear across the roof of turret No. i. 
Astern I looked down into the yawning 
mouth of our huge single smokestack. 
Not so much as a wraith of tell-tale smoke 
drifted from its edge; merely the shimmer 



Seeking the German Fleet i 5 5 

of heated gases — and I remembered that 
the boilers below were oil burners. Imme- 
diately abaft the mainmast, another pair 
of those beauties — the 14-inch — showed 
from No. 3 turret, with their muzzles 
poised a few feet above turret No. 4, from 
which protruded three 14's. Truly a noble 
ship, her powers of offence, represented by 
ten 14's and twenty-two 5's, being matched 
by the massive armor, 13^ to 18 inches 
in thickness, the like of which was 
to be found in no other navy of the 
world. 

Five hundred yards astern, with a white 
feather of foam curling from her shapely 
stem, was the Nevada, twin sister to the 
flagship. Astern of her, at the same in- 
terval, were the New York and Texas, 
carrying each a battery of ten 14's and 
twenty-one 5's. 

A wonderful piece, that 14 — the pet and 
pride of the officers and men. Down at 



156 America Fallen 

Indian Head, it had passed Its proving 
tests triumphantly. Fifty-four feet long, 
63 tons in weight, it had fired its 1,400- 
pound shell with a velocity of 2,600 feet a 
second and an energy of 65,000 foot-tons. 
At a distance of 10,000 yards, the projec- 
tiles were capable of passing clean through 
16 inches of Krupp armor. Elevated to 
its limit of 15 degrees, the gun could place 
a shell on a ship twelve miles distant. 

And there were forty of these guns that 
could speak at once, and twice a min- 
ute each, in the first four ships of our 
line. 

Astern of the Texas, I saw those stately 
ships, the Arkansas and Wyoming, mount- 
ing, each, twelve 1 2-inch guns in its six tur- 
rets, with a battery of twenty-one 5 -inch 
rapid-firers to repel torpedo attack. 

Seventh and eighth in line were the twin 
sisters, Utah and Florida, each carrying 
ten 12-inch guns and sixteen 5-inch. Last 



Seeking the German Fleet i 5 7 

in the line were the Delaware and North 
Dakota, our earliest dreadnoughts, mount- 
ing ten 12's and fourteen 5's. 

In displacement the ships varied from 
the 20,000 tons of the Delaware to the 
27,500 tons of the Oklahoma. The belt 
armor was from 11 inches to 13^ Inches 
in thickness, and the maximum speed of 
the fleet was 21 knots. 

Every ship could fire its whole broad- 
side on either beam, and in every minute of 
the coming engagement we would be able 
to hurl at the enemy no tons of projec- 
tiles, every one of which, if It landed 
squarely, would pass entirely through the 
belt armor of the enemy and burst In the 
interior of the ship. 

Ship for ship and gun for gun, we knew 
that we could crush that German fleet, 
which, the radio had told us, was ap- 
proaching somewhere to the eastward. 

But where was the enemy? In what 



158 America Fallen 

strength was he? And, most important 
question of all, how did he shoot? 

Before that sun, which I noted was just 
showing the golden edge of his rim above 
the horizon, had set, those questions had 
received their answer amid the fruitless 
heroism, the cataclysmic destruction, of 
the greatest sea fight in naval history. 



XV 

THE BATTLE OF THE CARIBBEAN 

I REMEMBER It was while six bells were 
striking that there came the following 
radio call from one of our scouts, the ar- 
mored cruiser Washington: "Approaching 
St. Nicholas," It said, " fog Hfted, dis- 
closing screen of five battle-cruisers of the 
enemy, steaming abreast, distance 20,000 
yards, covering a column of ten ships, 
apparently battleships. All are heading 
west. Am returning full speed, 22^^ 
knots.'* At 7:15 A.M. came another mes- 
sage : " Enemy, In chase, has opened fire 
at 18,000 yards and Is coming up fast." 
And then the story came in quick sequence. 
At 7 130: " Enemy at 15,000 yards Is using 
forward 12- and 11 -Inch guns on all five 

ships. Am replying with two after 10- 
159 



i6o America Fallen 

inch." At 7:40: "Received two shells, 
raking starboard battery." At 7 145 : 
" Shell in boiler-room and two funnels 
gone. Speed 15 knots." At 7 155 : " Steer- 
ing gear gone — after turret disabled — 
heavy casualties — am shot to pieces — go- 
ing down by stern, colors flying — sorry 
cannot give details battleship fleet — our 
position is lat. !" 

A wireless call was sent for our de- 
stroyers to rejoin the fleet at full speed, 
and the speed of the fleet was raised to 
17 knots. 

And then we saw them — on the star- 
board bow. First the masts, with the flut- 
ter of the battle-flags discernible; then 
the smokestacks, the turrets, the hulls, and, 
yes ! the five battle-cruisers, which only a 
brief hour before had sent the Washington 
with her gallant company to the bottom. 

And then, up over the horizon, sil- 
houetted sharply against the eastern sky, 



The Battle of the Caribbean i6i 

there came, a mile or more astern, the van 
of the battleship line — one — two — three — 
eight in all: the German dreadnoughts. 
And now the battle-cruisers began to swing 
around, at full speed, In a wide turn to 
port, following In the wake of their flag- 
ship, Derffiinger, until they had made a 
turn of 1 6 points, and were heading to the 
east. Simultaneously, each ship of the 
two battleship divisions swung around, 
with helm hard over, until it had turned 
1 6 points. When the maneuver was com- 
pleted, the Germans were heading east in 
two parallel columns, the battleship col- 
umn abreast of us at a distance of 16,000 
yards, and the battle-cruisers some 5,000 
yards off their starboard bow and 21,000 
yards from our line. 

In order to secure more of an offing 
from the Cuban coast, and obtain ample 
room for maneuvering, our Admiral sig- 
naled for every ship to turn four points 



1 62 America Fallen 

to starboard; a maneuver which was In- 
stantly followed by the Germans. 

" Ha, ha," laughed an ensign, who, with 
his eye at the range-finder, was calling the 
distances Into a telephone mouthpiece, 
" they don't want to come too close to our 
14-Inch guns; and as for the battle-cruisers, 
they are going to stay out of the scrap al- 
together; for at over 20,000 yards their 
ii's can never reach us." 

" You are wrong there," said Lieuten- 
ant Carlisle, the spotter; "the German 
batteries can elevate to 30 degrees, which 
is just twice as much as we can. Their 
ii's have the advantage In range, carrying 
up to 26,000 yards, as a matter of fact. 
See that? They are trying a ranging shot 
at 21,000 yards." 

And, sure enough, there was a flash 
from the forward turret of the Der- 
ffiinger, and thirty-five seconds later, with 
a deep moaning roar, a shell passed over 



The Battle of the Caribbean 163 

our heads and dropped into the sea, five 
hundred yards beyond the ship. 

And now Admiral Willard, having ob- 
tained sufficient offing, brought his fleet 
back into column again, ready for the great 
trial of strength. 

There was another flash from the Der- 
ffiinger, and half a minute later the shell 
struck 300 yards to starboard of the Okla- 
homa. 

'' Good shooting," said the ensign, 
*' now for the salvo." 

But it did not come — not yet. Instead, 
the leading ship of the German dread- 
nought column tried for range. The shell 
struck 400 yards short. The next was 600 
yards over. And then came the salvos. 
From both ships there burst a flash of 
flame, from the battle-cruiser first and, a 
few seconds later, from the dreadnought 
— and the Oklahoma was the target of 
each. 



164 America Fallen 

With a crash that seemed to rend the 
heavens, those twenty 12-inch shells 
** straddled '' our ship, one making a 
square hit on our belt and the others strik- 
ing the sea on either beam, and sending 
up vast columns of water that rose some 
250 feet in the air, and fell like broken 
waterspouts upon our decks. We on the 
fire-control platform were drenched and 
found ourselves standing over our boot- 
tops in water. 

But what of the Oklahoma? Had her 
guns been silent? Far from it. 

As soon as the German columns 
straightened out after their turn to the 
eastward, Ensign Brown at the range- 
finder began to telephone the range to the 
fire-control station below decks. " Sixteen 
thousand five hundred yards; 16,200; 16,- 
000; 15,500; 15,000." And looking over 
the rail, I noted that the center gun in No. 
I turret was lifting its muzzle. Then came 



The Battle of the Caribbean 165 

a snapping crash, a burst of flame, a drift 
of light-brown smoke, and the 1,400- 
pound shell was away on its flight. 
Twenty seconds later a beautiful snow- 
white column rose a little short of the Ger- 
man flagship and slightly astern. The 
" spotter," his eyes glued to his glasses, 
called into the mouthpiece of his telephone : 
"Up 300; left 6." 

Down to the central station below the 
water-line went the message. The neces- 
sary corrections in the elevation of the 
gun were there figured out and telephoned 
to the sight-setter at the gun. Again a 
shell sped to the mark. This time the 
splash was beyond the ship and ahead. 
" Down 200; right 3," called the spotter. 
And now the necessary corrections being 
made on every gun in the ship's battery, 
the fire-control officer, holding the cross- 
hairs of his telescope on the German flag- 
ship, pressed a button and all the 14-inch 



1 66 America Fallen 

guns in our battery let go together, and the 
ten 1,400-pound shells soared into the 
heavens, visible for a few seconds to the 
eye. There was a magnificent burst of 
water at the German flagship, and, as it 
fell away, through my glasses I could see 
that her after smokestack was gone. The 
ragged outline of her deck, moreover, 
showed where the shells had burst inboard, 
lifting the deck, and apparently jamming 
the after turret. 

And when the flagship had spoken, 
every ship down our line burst forth in 
flame and fury. The Germans fired with 
greater frequency and the storm of their 
shells, striking the water, raised such a 
mass of broken spray that, at times, I 
could see no farther than the second ship 
astern. 

The American ships fired with greater 
deliberation, and, evidently, with greater 
accuracy. Moreover, against a com- 



The Battle of the Caribbean 167 

blned broadside for the enemy dread- 
noughts of thirty-two 12's and thirty-two 
ii's, we opposed a total broadside of 
forty 14's and sixty-four 12's. The fire 
of the German battle-cruisers at 20,000 
yards was too inaccurate to be much more 
than annoying, although some deck hits 
were made. 

After ten minutes of furious fighting, 
superior weight of metal began to tell. 
The flagship Thuringen, with one smoke- 
stack gone and the after turret out of 
action, began to slow down; finally drop- 
ping to the rear, leaving the Helgoland 
to lead the line. Later, she picked up and 
took station at the rear of the German 
column. Then the Oldenburg, second in 
line, took a sudden shear, and began to 
circle, finally coming back on her own line 
and cutting in between the Thuringen 
(last in line) and the Posen. A 14-inch 
shell striking fair on the conning tower 



1 68 America Fallen 

had wrecked it and jammed her steering 
wheel. Ultimately, she st'^aightened out, 
1,500 yards astern of the column, which 
slowed down to cover her until she closed 
up. 

The first ship to be put out of action 
was the Nassau, which succumbed to the 
concentrated salvos of the four leading 
ships of our line. Under the impact of 
their 14-inch shells, it looked through our 
glasses as though a whole section of her 
side armor was driven bodily into the 
ship. She dropped out of line mortally 
hurt, and, heeling rapidly, capsized and 
sank, fifteen minutes after the action 
opened. 

Our leading ships then concentrated on 
the Helgoland and Ostfriesland, first and 
second in line; and in order to cover them 
the battle-cruisers, risking the penetration 
of their belts by our 14's, drew ahead clear 
of the dreadnought line and closing in to 



The Battle of the Caribbean 169 

15,000 yards began to plant their salvos 
on the Oklahoma and Nevada. 

Their shells, falling at a steep angle, 
were dropping on our decks; and It was 
one of these that pierced the protective 
deck of the Nevada, smashed her low pres- 
sure turbines, and threw this fine ship out 
of the line. She stopped and drifted 
astern. When I last saw her, she was blaz- 
ing away with her 5-Inch batteries at a 
swarm of German destroyers, which had 
rushed In, like a crowd of angry terriers, 
to get her with the torpedo. 

The fight had now been on for half an 
hour and we were asserting our superior- 
ity. The battle-cruiser Von der Tann had 
been badly hit and was settling by the stern. 
The fire from the German dreadnoughts 
had perceptibly slackened, and the Thu- 
ringen, at the tail of the column, was again 
in trouble with her steering-gear and had 
fallen behind. Although our ships had 



170 America Fallen 

been badly knocked about in their upper 
works and some of the turrets had been 
disabled, the water line was intact on every 
ship. Victory was in sight, and we on the 
fire-control platform were jubilantly slap- 
ping each other on the back, when, hap- 
pening to look landwards (we were now 
clearing Cape Maysi, the extreme easterly 
point of Cuba), I saw the leading ships of 
a column of warships moving past the 
point and bearing down diagonally upon 
our port bow. 

I touched the spotter on the shoul- 
der: " Carhsle, look at that; what is 
it?" 

He swung his glasses upon the fleet (It 
was clear of the point by now). " That, 
my dear sir, is the other and stronger half 
of the German fleet, four Koenigs and the 
five Kaisers J^ 

" Good Heavens! Then we are in for 



172 America Fallen 

" In for a licking," my dear boy, " if 
they can do as good shooting as our 
friends over there," with a wave of the 
hand to the starboard. 

" But the radio from Key West told 
us that this fleet was a thousand miles 
north from here." 

Carlisle was silent for a moment. *'Did 
you not think it strange that we should 
have been able to communicate only with 
Key West radio station — not a word from 
Colon or Arlington?" 

" Yes, I had thought of that." 

" Well, that second fleet coming out 
from under the lee of Cuba has made 
everything as clear as day to me. The 
Germans have raided our coasts (why, — 
we may never live to know), seized Key 
West, and, using our secret code (which 
their confounded Intelligence Service has 
undoubtedly gotten hold of) , have led us, 
in their own good time, and with true Ger- 



The Battle of the Caribbean 173 

man precision, into this trap. Just look at 
that! They are going to tee us." 

And there we saw the four battle- 
cruisers, going 28 knots, forge ahead of 
the German column, and draw in, diag- 
onally, across our path. 

By the time the second fleet of the 
enemy had closed in to 12,000 yards and 
opened fire, the cruiser division was zig- 
zagging across our course, 10,000 yards 
ahead, and delivering a raking fire right 
down our line, first letting fly to starboard, 
then to port. 

A hurricane of fire and steel smote the 
head of the American line. By precon- 
certed plan, every ship of the enemy, from 
starboard, from port, and from dead 
ahead, concentrated on the Oklahoma. 
Never had such a fury of shells stormed 
upon ship or fortress as found and 
searched out the American flagship. In 
those brief minutes before she sank, all 



174 America Fallen 

semblance of a ship had gone out of her. 
The roar of bursting shells was continuous. 
From side to side and from end to end 
they tore through her quivering frame and 
laughed at her dying agony. 

And I am told that what happened to 
her happened at the head of the surviving 
line, until the last ship had gone, — the 
column melting away before that concen- 
trated fire like a bar of sealing wax before 
a blowpipe. 

I remember, as the noble ship keeled 
swiftly over, how the fire-control platform 
described a mighty arc through the air, 
and flung us Into the shell-lashed waters. 
My last recollection of that holocaust Is 
of seeing the Arkansas, flashing from 
stem to stern with the burst of high- 
explosive shell as she swept by. Then a 
shell fragment grazed my head. 

The water, or I know not what, brought 



The Battle of the Caribbean 175 

me to. Far in the distance the flash and 
smoke and roar of battle marked where 
the last American ship was being done to 
death, the dear old flag flaunting its " no 
surrender " message to the bitter end. 
And then, as the sad vision and all vision 
began to fade away, I heard sharp words 
of command, and the swish of backing pro- 
pellers, and something jerked me violently 
by the collar, and I was lying upon my 
back, and a familiar voice was saying: 
" Bless my soul, if it isn't Watson ! What 
in the name of the unexpected and im- 
possible are you doing here? " 

And I had been fished out of the water 
by a boat hook and landed on the deck of 
the U. S. destroyer Patterson; and there 
was Commander Judson, whose guest I had 
been on this very boat, during a never-to- 
be-forgotten week of the summer ma- 
neuvers last year. 

" I came down to witness director firing 



176 Amej^ica Fallen 

on the Oklahoma and — well — I saw it. — 
And you, what are you going to do? " 

" Beat it for Hampton Roads, or any 
other point where I can get in to tell the 
good people of the United States, and their 
good representatives in the halls of Con- 
gress, to what a pretty mess they have 
brought their navy, as the result of 
interference, parsimony, and neglect!" 



XVI 

REAPING THE WHIRLWIND 

The plan of campaign for the invasion of 
the United States, as formulated by the 
Great General Staff at Berlin, comprised 
three major operations: 

I. To make a surprise attack upon the 
coast by a raiding force, and capture 
Washington and the principal seaboard 
cities, harbors, and naval bases. 

II. To destroy the enemy fleet and 
obtain command of the sea. 

III. By the instant seizure of all the ar- 
senals, gun factories, and powder works, 
to prevent the development of the great 
potential strength of the United States in 
men capable of bearing arms. 

So perfect was the preparation of Ger- 
many; so complete the unpreparedness of 
177 



178 America Fallen 

the great country against which she 
launched her attack, that within a week of 
the declaration of war her fleet had sunk 
the enemy and was in undisputed command 
of the sea, and her army had captured the 
National Capital and the two leading sea- 
ports of the country. 

At the very hour when the Mayor of 
New York received the ultimatum of Ad- 
miral Buchner, there dropped anchor in 
the Narrows the new 54,000-ton liner 
Bismarck. It was her maiden voyage 
(duly advertised), and she had on board 
10,000 German troops with their full 
equipment. The next day she was joined 
by the Imperator and the Vaterland, and 
as soon as the signal " cease firing " had 
been made from the Koenig, the three 
great ships, carrying 30,000 troops, or as 
many as the total regular mobile army in 
the United States at that hour, steamed to 



Reaping the Whirlwind 179 

the Hoboken and Chelsea docks and began 
the work of debarkation. Before night on 
April 2d, the German forces in New York, 
including the garrisons at the forts, num- 
bered 35,000 men. 

To Boston came the Cecilie, the Kaiser 
fVilhelm II, and many another well- 
remembered liner, crowded with men and 
equipment. Night and day the soldiers 
of the Kaiser poured down the gangways 
of the ships, formed in column, marched 
from the docks to the armories, and were 
billeted throughout the cities. 

And now, the need for secrecy being 
removed, transports steamed boldly up 
the Chesapeake, and Washington re- 
ceived its quota of the first reenforcements 
from Germany. Here, the guns, horses, 
transport wagons, etc., were placed on 
pontoons for transport from ship to land- 
ing beach. 

So excellent were the facilities for de- 



i8o America Fallen 

barkatlon afforded by the possession of 
New York and Boston, that by April 5th, 
including the raiding force, two army 
corps, or 80,000 troops, fully equipped and 
ready for service in the field, had been 
landed in America. 

And thereafter during the next five days, 
the faster ships of the transports which 
sailed from Germany on April ist began 
to arrive, warping into the piers at New 
York and Boston, which had been vacated 
by the earlier transports ; so that by April 
loth the German forces in the United 
States had been raised to 100,000 men. 

Bold, indeed, was the strategy which 
dared to send this army to sea in unarmed 
transports, while the main fleet of the 
enemy was still " in being," or intact upon 
the high seas. Had not the great Mahan 
and many another authority before him 
laid it down, that before troops were em- 
barked the enemy fleet must be either 



Reaping the Whirlwind i8i 

sunk or securely blockaded in its own 
ports? True; but, "Other times, other 
customs." The advent of the seagoing 
submarine and of the wireless had intro- 
duced factors which had upset the old 
formulas of war. 

The possession by the enemy of a force 
of seagoing submarines enabled them, at 
one stroke, to clear the coasts of every hos- 
tile ship from Canada to the Panama 
Canal; and the capture of the radio plants 
and the possession by Germany of the 
U. S. Navy Secret Code made it possible 
to lure its main fleet into a position where 
it could be overwhelmed by superior num- 
bers. 

Finally, on April nth there appeared 
off the American coast a great fleet of 45 
transports, having on board 100,000 
troops, and convoyed by the pre-dread- 
nought ships of the Deutschland and 
fVittlesbach classes. It divided, the five 



1 82 America Fallen 

Deutschlands convoying half of the force 
to New York and the five Wittleshachs 
proceeding with the other half to the Dela- 
ware. The defences of the Delaware 
having been already taken from the land 
side, the fleet steamed up to Philadel- 
phia. 

By the 14th of April, or just two weeks 
after the declaration of war, an army of 
200,000 of the picked veterans of the re- 
cent European conflict had been landed 
on American shores and was prepared to 
move into the interior for the subjugation 
of the country. 

And that was how it came about that 
the United States — the wealthiest and, po- 
tentially in its undeveloped wealth of men 
and natural resources, the most powerful 
country on earth — found itself, in the 
space of two eventful weeks, held fast in 
the " mailed fist " of a foreign foe. 



Reaping the Whirlwind 183 

Having, lo ! these many years, '' sown to 
the wind " the seeds of pacificist delusion, 
of political self-seeking, of amazing self- 
sufficiency, and of fatuous neglect, she was 
now to " reap the whirlwind " of disillu- 
sionment and humiliation In a profound 
national disaster! 

To describe In any detail the sequence 
of the operations by which the German 
Commander-in-Chief, within two weeks of 
the opening of hostilities had captured all 
the arsenals, and arms and powder works 
lying between the coast and the Alle- 
ghanies, would take a volume In itself. 
That must be the work of the future his- 
torian. It will suffice for the present 
purpose to sketch the mere outline of those 
tragic events which came to be known 
thereafter as The. Great American De- 
bacle ! 

Immediately upon the capture of Bos- 



1 84 America Fallen 

ton, New York, and Washington, detach- 
ments were told off to seize the railway 
yards and terminals, and to commandeer 
such automobiles and motor trucks as 
were best adapted to army transport. 
This was done in each case on April ist, 
and early on the same day strong flying 
detachments, with numerous batteries of" 
machine-guns, were rushed out by rail and 
by automobile to seize the bridges and 
tunnels on the main lines of the New 
Haven, the New York Central, and the 
Pennsylvania systems. Every few hours 
additional reenforcements were pushed 
forward to strengthen and hold these 
strategic points, until the several armies 
of occupation could be brought up from 
the coast by rail. 

And on April 6th, the railroads being 
securely held, the main advance began. 

From Boston a force of 5,000 men was 
thrown into Portsmouth, and three regi- 



Reaping the Whirlwind 185 

ments, comprising about 10,000 men, 
moved down the coast, capturing the Fore 
River Shipbuilding plant at Quincy, 
Mass., where most of the United States 
submarines are built, and seizing the Tor- 
pedo Station at Newport, R. I., the sub- 
marine engine works at Groton, and the 
port of New London. 

By way of the New Haven four-track 
road, 15,000 troops moved from New 
York into Connecticut, capturing, in succes- 
sion, Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, 
and Springfield, Mass. This placed in pos- 
session of the enemy such important works 
as those of the Union Metallic Cartridge 
Company, the American & British Mfg. 
Co. for making field-guns, the Winches- 
ter and Marlin works, the Colt works, 
and, greatest disaster of all, the United 
States Aresnal, where the rifles for the 
Regular Army and the Organized Militia 
are made. 



1 86 America Fallen 

The army of Invasion by way of the 
Hudson River, 15,000 strong, moving by 
the four-track road of the New York Cen- 
tral, captured lona Island, an Important 
shell and powder depot of the U. S. Navy, 
and at Troy, N. Y., took possession of the 
Government works for the manufacture of 
heavy coast-defence guns and mortars. 
Pushing on they soon had possession, at 
Utica and Illon, of the Remington and of 
the Savage Small Arms works. 

The Invasion of New Jersey was effected 
by a division (20,000 men). Strong de- 
tachments of this force seized the United 
States Army Arsenal and Powder works 
near Dover, and the Powder works of the 
Du Pont Powder Company at Parlln, 
Pompton Lakes, and other New Jersey 
points. Another detachment moved 
through Easton and took possession of the 
Bethlehem Steel Works, one of the most 
important gun and armor plants In the 



Reaping the Whirlwind 187 

world. The balance of the force, com- 
prising some 15,000 men, seized Philadel- 
phia, and took over the great shipbuild- 
ing yards of the Cramps at Philadelphia 
and of the New York Shipbuilding Com- 
pany at Camden, N. J. Following this, 
the Germans moved down on both sides 
of the Delaware and captured, from the 
land side, the fortifications on the river 
guarding the approaches to Philadel- 
phia. 

From Washington 7,000 troops moved 
on Baltimore, and pushing on, occupied 
Wilmington and the great powder works 
of the Du Pont Powder Company at Car- 
ney Point. Fort Monroe was reduced by 
bombardment, from a point beyond the 
range of its guns, by the battleship fleet 
which convoyed the second half of the 
German Army; and when this had been ac- 
complished, the Norfolk Navy Yard and 
the Newport News Shipyard were cap- 



1 88 America Fallen 

tured by a force of 3,000 men from Wash- 
ington. 

And thus, by April loth, the major 
naval and military operations of the Ger- 
man plan of invasion had been completed. 
The United States main fleet was sunk, 
Washington and the principal seacoast 
cities were captured, and the arsenals and 
gun factories (with the exception of that at 
Rocklsland) for arming and supplying any 
new armies which might be raised were in 
German hands. 

Eight billions of the twenty billions 
which was the ultimate object of the inva- 
sion had been pledged. It now remained 
to secure from the Federal Government 
the twelve billion dollars, which had been 
demanded as the price of peace and the 
evacuation of United States territory. 

Let it not be for one moment supposed 
that while its territory was thus being out- 



Reaping the Whirlwind 189 

raged and overrun, the United States was 
tamely submissive. The regular army, 
alas ! except for the slender garrisons, was 
concentrated thousands of miles away on 
the Mexican border; but the moment the 
news of the invasion was flashed inland, 
orders were given for the mobilization of 
the militia and every emergency measure 
was taken to meet the invader. 

But so quickly did he strike inland that 
it was at once evident that any concentra- 
tion of troops in the East, in sufficient 
strength for effectual resistance, was im- 
possible. Therefore, acting on the advice 
of his Chief of Staff, the President sent 
out an order for the retirement of all 
forces, regular and militia, behind the 
general line of the Alleghanies, and their 
concentration at Pittsburg, the temporary 
seat of Government. 

And so, with smothered rage, the de- 
scendants of the men who fought at Lex- 



190 America Fallen 

ington, Bunker Hill, and Yorktown saw 
the richest and most populous section of 
their country handed over for occupation 
by a foreign army; and the bitterness of 
that hour was not assuaged by the thought 
that this evacuation by the scatteredAmeri- 
can troops was the only alternative to their 
capture or absolute annihilation by the per- 
fectly organized army of occupation, back 
of which, thanks to the absolute command 
of the sea, lay the miUions of the Kaiser's 
army. 

Bitter as gall, too, was the thought that, 
if the country had listened to the oft- 
repeated warnings of its military advisers, 
the enemy could never have landed on 
American soil, or, having done so, would 
have been met by a quick concentration in 
such superior strength as to drive him back 
to his ships. 



XVII 

THE CAPTURE OF PITTSBURG — AND PEACE 

No answer having been received by the 
Commander-in-Chief of the German 
forces in America to the proposals for- 
warded to the United States Government 
at Pittsburg, orders were given in Berhn 
on April 3d for the immediate embarkation 
of a third army of 100,000 men for the 
seat of war. Also, instructions were for- 
warded to New York to move in full 
strength on Pittsburg. 

Forthwith, an army of 150,000 men be- 
gan to concentrate at Philadelphia — 50,- 
000 men being considered amply sufficient 
to hold the cities already captured. This 
confidence was based on the absolutely re- 
liable data furnished to Berlin before the 

war by the German Intelligence Service 
191 



192 America Fallen 

as to the total effectives (90,000 regular 
and militia) In the country, and on the in- 
formation furnished from the same source 
as to the complete evacuation of the At- 
lantic States by the United States military 
forces and their concentration at Pitts- 
burg. 

Before the movement of troops dis- 
closed the plan of campaign, strong ad- 
vance forces were thrown forward to hold 
the bridges on the line of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad across the Alleghanies. The 
main force moved forward on April i6th 
by rail and motor car, on parallel roads, 
until it was halted at the great stone bridge 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad across the 
Susquehanna, near Harrisburg, three 
arches of which had been blown up by the 
United States Army Engineers. The Ger- 
mans ultimately crossed by temporary tres- 
tle bridging, and by a pontoon bridge, 
which they threw across the river. Sharp 



The Capture of Pittsburg 193 

fighting occurred between the American 
rear guard and the advance screen of the 
German Army at every point up the Juniata 
Valley that offered strong positions for 
defence. On April 20th and 21st one of 
the most glorious feats of arms in Ameri- 
can history was performed, when a united 
force of 10,000 regulars and 15,000 mili- 
tia held the pass at the summit of the Alle- 
ghanies for two days, throwing back the 
van of the German advance, and being fin- 
ally dislodged only when massed batteries 
of 400 guns caused them to retreat— the 
whole force getting away down the Cone- 
maugh Valley with their artillery and 
wounded. 

The American Army, consisting of 
28,000 regulars and 42,000 effectives of 
the militia, with 30,000 partially trained 
and ill-equipped militia in reserve, had 
taken position for the defence of Pitts- 
burg on the historic field of Braddock's 



194 America Fallen 

defeat. The little army was strongly en- 
trenched; but in field artillery it was sadly 
deficient, having only i8o field-guns, 
where it should have had 350. There 
was a similar shortage in machine-gun 
batteries. 

Against the Americans was deployed an 
army which, in spite of the engagements in 
crossing the mountains, still numbered 
145,000 men of all arms. It was com- 
pletely equipped, and of the 7.7 centimeter 
field-gun it possessed over 850, besides sev- 
eral batteries of 8.2-inch field howitzers. 

It is not within the scope of this narra- 
tive to attempt any description of the Bat- 
tle of Braddock. Thanks to the skill with 
which the American position was chosen, 
the admirable advantage that was taken 
of the terrain in laying out the trenches 
and emplacing the batteries, and above all 
the matchless courage and endurance with 
which the American Army clung to its 



The Capture of Pittsburg 195 

position — the onset of the German inva- 
sion was checked and its first rush broken 
and thrown back in confusion upon the 
main body. Only after two days of the 
bloodiest charge and countercharge, and 
when the whole mass of the German ar- 
tillery had blasted the American trenches 
out of all semblance of earthworks, did the 
remnant of the American forces fall back 
on Pittsburg. After destroying all the 
bridges the army fell back to take up a 
strong defensive position along the west 
bank of the Ohio. 

The seat of government was transferred 
to Cincinnati; and, within a few days, an 
emissary arrived from the German Com- 
mander-in-Chief, with the proposal that, 
on the condition of the payment by the 
Federal Government of twelve billion 
dollars and its abandonment of the " Mon- 
roe Doctrine," the German Army would 
be reembarked, leaving sufficient forces to 



196 America Fallen 

hold the principal custom-houses on the At- 
lantic and Gulf Coast until the indemnity 
was paid. 

A council of war was called by the Presi- 
dent for the purpose of discussing the mili- 
tary situation. Present were the Cabinet, 
the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the 
President of the General Board of the 
Navy. 

The President of the United States, 
whose poise, so far as any outward indica- 
tions might show, seemed to have been in 
no wise disturbed by the stupendous 
calamity which had overtaken the country, 
said: 

" The question as to whether it will be 
the part of wisdom to accept the conditions 
of the enemy, or carry on the war until he 
is crushed and driven back to the sea, is a 
naval and military one. There are two 
questions, indeed, to be answered : Is there 
any possibility of our defeating the enemy 



The Capture of Pittsburg 197 

fleet and cutting off the German Army 
from its base; and failing that, what are 
the prospects of our raising an army or 
armies of sufficient strength to defeat the 
land forces of the enemy and drive him 
back to the sea." 

" So far as the naval situation is con- 
cerned," said the President of the General 
Board, " the case is hopeless. It became 
so on the fatal day when every dread- 
nought possessed by the American Navy 
was sunk in the Caribbean. For, although, 
in spite of the great odds against which we 
fought (10 ships against 22), eight of the 
enemy were sunk, they still have 14 ships 
of the dreadnought class off our coast, be- 
sides 10 ships of the pre-dreadnought 
class, to say nothing of strong divisions 
and flotillas of cruisers, destroyers, and 
submarines. Our own pre-dreadnought 
fleet is in the Pacific, and, because of the 
preponderance of the enemy in the At- 



198 America Fallen 

lantic, it must remain there. We cannot 
increase our naval strength; for all of our 
navy yards and shipbuilding plants on the 
Atlantic seaboard are in the hands of the 
enemy. Whatever the duration of the war, 
Mr. President, the command of the sea 
will remain with the Germans; and they 
will be free to bring over the whole 
German Army, should they wish to do 
so." 

He was followed by the Chief of Staff, 
who said : 

" As to the military situation, Mr. Pres- 
ident, the conditions are easily stated. 

" The enemy is in undisputed possession 
of the richest, most valuable, and most 
densely populated section of the United 
States. He holds all that part of the 
country north of the Potomac lying be- 
tween the Alleghanies and the Atlantic 
Coast. Being in command of the sea and 
possessing ample transport, he is free to 



The Capture of Pittsburg 199 

land on our shores as many troops as he 
may desire. His army can live off the 
land. Having possession of the principal 
ports of the country, he can collect those 
revenues which have formed the greater 
half of the revenues of the Federal Gov- 
ernment; and our Treasury will be de- 
pleted to just that extent. Therefore, if 
we carry on the war, the cost of the war, 
not merely to us but to the enemy, must 
be borne by the United States. 

" The question of our ability to raise 
and equip an army sufficient in numbers, 
equipment, and training to enable us to 
drive the enemy back to the sea depends, 
primarily, upon the strength of the forces 
which he may bring over. So great is the 
prize for which Germany would contend 
that she would match corps with corps, 
army with army; and, supposing that no 
European complications arise, it is conceiv- 
able that we should find ourselves con- 



200 America Fallen 

fronted by the full strength of the German 
Army or, say, Including the first and second 
reserves, by 4,000,000 men." 

Here the Secretary of State Interposed 
to say : 

" The President has only to send out a 
call for volunteers, and out of our 100,- 
000,000 citizens, 10,000,000 would spring 
to arms before the sun had set." 

" True, Mr. Secretary," said the Chief 
of Staff, " but you must remember that se- 
curing the men Is the simplest part of the 
problem. Moreover, you must not forget 
that the most populous portion of the 
country Is held by the enemy, and If he 
can prevent It — which he will — not a single 
volunteer will be available from the cap- 
tured territory. 

" The problem, however, is not to get 
the men, but the officers to lead them and 
the rifles, uniforms, ammunition, and 
above all the artillery, with which to equip 



The Capture of Pittsburg 201 

them. Without these, your 10,000,000 
men, Mr. Secretary, as I told you in Wash- 
ington, would be merely a mob, 10,000,- 
000 strong. 

" Take the question of artillery alone. 
Without it, to send an army to battle with 
the superbly equipped German troops 
would be to send the brave fellows to cer- 
tain slaughter. To equip an arpiy of 
4,000,000 men with field artillery alone 
would call for 20,000 3-inch guns; and the 
equipment with howitzers and machine- 
guns, to say nothing of rifles and ammuni- 
tion of all kinds, would be on the same 
scale. 

" Where are we going to obtain all this 
materiel? Practically all the arsenals, 
depots, gunshops, rifle factories, and pow- 
der works of the United States lie in that 
part of the country which is held by the 
enemy. 

*^So the question of how long it would 



f- 



202 America Fallen 

take us to drive out the Germans is one not 
of patriotism but of mechanics. If I could 
tell you, offhand, Mr. President, how long 
it would take to build, equip, and man the 
factories necessary to manufacture the 
rifles, field-guns, powder, uniforms, and 
tentage for an army of one million, or two, 
three, or four million men, as the case 
might be, I could tell you how long 
it would be before we were ready 
to drive the enemy from our lost terri- 
tory. 

" At a rough guess, I should say that it 
would be not less than two and a half 
years, and if he developed his full military 
strength, it might be five or six.'* 

The Chief of Staff paused, swept his 
glance over the Cabinet, and resumed: 

'' If I may be allowed to state what 
seems to me to be the wise course, the truly 
patriotic course, in this crisis " 

" Certainly,*' said the President. 



The Capture of Pittsburg 203 

" I would suggest that the Government 
pay this indemnity, and write it off on the 
National Ledger as the cost of being 
taught the great national duty of military 
preparedness." 



THE END. 



